Saturday, August 15, 2009

[in the last autumn] you'll not remember what was here before



Any Russian can tell you that this is nowhere near a direct translation but one which translates the ideas behind the words into words the English speaker would understand, without the grammatical awkwardness.

You can Babel it to see how close I got.

Голодное море шипя поглотило
Осеннее солнце и за облаками
Вы больше не вспомните то что здесь было
И пыльной травы не коснетесь руками
Уходят в последнюю осень поэты
И их не вернуть заколочены ставни
Остались дожди и замерзшие реки

The hungry sea hisses and absorbs the autumn sun; behind the clouds, you will no longer recall that which was here; the dust on the grass won't be touched [further] by your hands; the poets depart in the last autumn and do not return; the shutters ae boarded up; only the rains and frozen rivers remain.

Give it a chance if you can - the images are nice and quite like Russia in autumn.

[world quiz] statistically speaking


1. Which country is the third most visited holiday destination for Brits?

2. Which country is the third most visited holiday destination for Americans?

3. Which country [excluding the EU] has the highest GDP in the world?

4. Which comes sixth?

5. Which figure, in millions of U.S. dollars, more accurately represents current world GDP?

# 53,772,009
# 60,689,812
# 78,463,282

Answers
U.S.A., UK, U.S.A., UK, 60,689,812

[existentialism at the seaside] can't see it - doesn't exist

[state health system] in the russia of the late 90s and the noughties

A polyclinic might be found on the first floor [ground floor] of any large housing block


South African Steve Hayes, of the fine blog Notes from Underground, writes:

My only experience of the NHS was over 40 years ago when I went to a dentist in London. It seemed to work OK then. Like anything worked by humans beings, no doubt it leaves room for improvement.

What was the Russian health service like when you were there? When I was there in 1995, it seemed pretty putrid, and everyone I spoke to seemed to think that it had deteriorated rapidly in the early 1990s.

Steve, on the British system, I'm no expert. These folk say it's bad but this chap, Rick, says it's good [don't mind my feistiness in comments].

My girlfriend's mother was a doctor in the state system and I'd occasionally go to the polyclinic to see her although she was a paediatrician and by all accounts, a good one. I saw people with appointments sitting around and as far as I could see, it operated as it does in the west. People went in, were treated and came out of that room. Different rooms had different purposes.

It was prescriptive in the early days but there was a major move to catch up with the west and a lot of in-service studying was going on with the doctors. Our university [and in fact all institutions] had compulsory fluorographs and near the end of my stay, compulsory biennial check-ups, which had to be seen to be believed.

The fluorographs were OK - a van came near, we were informed and had a couple of days in which to queue up [not too many in the queue]. I was in that van with women mainly and not all were particular about changing out of dress so I thought why should I be any different? The radiologists were perfunctory and Soviet but not unpleasant.

Coming back to the biennial checkup, it was like circuit training in a gym or jabs in the army. One floor of the university was given over to the doctors and it was a case of go to Table A to have your reflexes checked, then to give our sample which we'd brought, into a room for a bloodcheck then onto a bench to wait.

Next into another room where the interview came with a doctor with a quite pleasant bedside manner and he did the blood pressure, next room for the eyesight and so on until the thing was through. Sounds horrible but actually it was all done in an hour and a bit and I didn't mind it. The Russians were used to it.


It did appear to become better as the post-Soviet years went by. Russians adore their children and overindulge them whenever possible - the stern attitude almost always relaxes with children.


The only time I was sick was at the beginning of my stay, 12 years earlier and that was pure Soviet. I had flu and apparently, it was close-to-death stuff - I was diagnosed as having been likely to snuff it if the medicos hadn't rushed to the flat where I was staying. A doctor dressed in dusky military green came and sat down on a chair and directed junior doctors to do the jabs etc.

A special doc arrived and inserted this tar compound down the back of the nose and I tell you what - it cleared everything for weeks. My friends arrived with fruit [and it was damned expensive at that time, mid winter] but that's what people did there - friends and family, de rigeur, stepped in and helped anyone in such a situation.

Look, it was rough and ready but it was mighty effective. The bedside manner no doubt came in later years, when private clinics sprang up.

I can speak of the dentist better and after a brush with the state variety, on referral by my gf's mum [very NHS in its documentation and referrrals], one had to give a box of chocolates to the woman doctor for deigning to see us ahead of the queue and the service was OK. Later, when I had my first filling in the private clinic, the doc asked who had put in the filling which had fallen out and I told him the state doc. He raised his eyes to the ceiling and put it straight.

All that work is still in place, I always had the anaesthetic ... really it was no different to here I imagine except that everyone had disposable plastic galoshes to put over our shoes and these were binned on the way out. There was dispute over payment and my gf had a standing row at the front desk [she was a little lioness] over free treatment in an emergency [some law] and they argued it was not an emergency but the papers were signed anyway and I got a heavy discount.

Plus tea and sympathy later, which was more than nice. Russians don't suffer malingerers or hypochondriacs in their tough life but if someone is genuinely sick, all hands chip in to get the person up and about again.

It was still whom you knew and which clinic you went to but there was, at the end, private choice, at a cost - no health insurance - one paid cash. Or else it was the local polyclinic for your area, long queues, brusque reception and no beg pardons. The Russians went to the pay clinics in droves.

Doctors did too because a state doctor's salary was about $250 p.m. in 2008 but in a private clinic, was half western doctors' salaries - big difference.

Medicine itself - western, drug based. Have a problem? Get prescribed a pill although herbal remedies were still used a lot and I had some of those after dental work. Getting the right herbs was a big deal over there, grandmothers knowing exactly which ones and how. They worked too.

They were humans, the Russians, as we are and much of it was probably a bit as it is with us. I'd appreciate knowing how the South African system works, by the way, if you could do an article on it, Steve. My best treatment ever was in Finland and in an American forces hospital in NW Australia. My worst [and it wasn't too bad, to be fair] was in a British clinic in North Yorkshire.

That's about all I can think of, really.


This picture seems close to what I recall - newer technology coming in, in still old buildings - you can see the ladies are not ogres, as appeared to be de rigeur in early post-Soviet days

Friday, August 14, 2009

[whom to believe] two polls

Higham is just a little peeved and the issue he's peeved over is people talking apparent rubbish.

On the NHS issue, I put the question of whether it is efficient, inexpensive and working well? Comments can be seen HERE.

Now the opinions are so diametrically opposed that it's not funny. This is not just shades of grey - this is the majority saying the NHS is appalling, kaput, *&^#$%ed and yet one or two have come in and said the exact opposite - that things are on the up and all is well.

There's something clearly wrong here and an outsider could be forgiven for thinking one side is telling porkies. So I'm going to do a poll [one of two polls today] with the simple question - is the English NHS:

1. terrible - it's a disaster
2. not too bad
3. much improved and does the job

I'm also running a poll on whether you believe the "official" line about certain situations:

1. JFK
2. Diana
3. David Kelly
4. the NHS
5. recovery of the economy

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR THE TWO QUESTIONS


The good thing with Survey Monkey is the poll layout. The bad thing is that you can't see results so twice a day I'll have to post them for readers.

[working man] prepares for the weekend

[macro-economic delusions] part six – rank dishonesty

The Future of Money:
Creating New Wealth, Work, and a Wiser World

by Bernard Lietaer

Your money's value is determined by a global casino of unprecedented proportions: $2 trillion are traded per day in foreign exchange markets, 100 times more than the trading volume of all the stockmarkets of the world combined. Only 2% of these foreign exchange transactions relate to the "real" economy reflecting movements of real goods and services in the world, and 98% are purely speculative.

This global casino is triggering the foreign exchange crises which shook Mexico in 1994-5, Asia in 1997 and Russia in 1998. These emergencies are the dislocation symptoms of the old Industrial Age money system. Unless some precautions are taken soon, there is at least a 50-50 chance that the next five to ten years will see a global money meltdown, the only plausible way for a global depression.

Yves Smith at NakedCapitalism.com points out:

Let's see, the CEO of AIG was recently a board member of Goldman and still owns $3 million of Goldman stock. Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein was the only Wall Street representative asked to confer with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson when the AIG crisis broke. AIG paid out all its counterparties in full on their exposures at each downgrade, a move that has since been questioned, and Goldman was far and away the biggest recipient of these payments.

Viniar's defense is that the payments netted to zero, which is technically correct but more than a tad misleading---why should Goldman be made whole on a bad business decision? Since when is the taxpayer in the business of propping up Goldman, particularly since the firm paid large bonuses in 2008? And, unlike AIG, where the bonuses are mere chicken feed, we are talking bonuses easily in excess of $10 billion.

IMF Country Report, UK, July 2009, p36:


In other words, they don't trust the UK approach to fiscal and monetary policy.

David Kelly

A group of doctors have produced a report arguing that the Hutton Inquiry's finding of suicide was flawed and have handed it to lawyers preparing a legal challenge.Dr Kelly's body was found six years ago on Friday in woods near his Oxfordshire home after he was exposed as the source of a BBC report on the grounds for going to war in Iraq.

Instead of a coroner's inquest, Lord Hutton was asked by then Prime Minister Tony Blair to conduct an investigation. His inquiry concluded the 59-year-old died from blood loss as a result of cutting his wrist with a blunt gardening knife.

According to the team of 13 specialist medics, however, a cut to the ulnar artery was "highly unlikely" to have caused enough bleeding to kill Dr Kelly.

Gold scamming

1p ET Saturday, July 11, 2009

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

GATA board member Adrian Douglas discloses in the report below, titled "The Alchemists," that the New York and Tokyo commodity exchanges have been permitting their gold futures contracts to be settled not in real metal but in shares of gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs). This essentially allows the gold shorts (and the exchanges themselves, which guarantee futures contracts) to transfer their obligations to third parties that may not have the metal they claim to have and that, in any case, are operated by the investment banks running major short positions in gold.

Thus it is likely that the paper claims to the world's supply of gold are greater than even GATA has suspected -- that the gold supply is even more oversubscribed and that "paper gold" is being created at an ever more frantic rate to suppress gold's price.

The ability to offload futures contract gold obligations to the ETFs could become the principal mechanism of the gold price suppression scheme. GATA asks its supporters to call Douglas' report to the attention of financial journalists, market regulators, and elected officials everywhere.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

Market Ticker:

Hmmm.... where have I seen that before?

Oh yeah, right here:

English: We still have banks that are engaged in what amounts to accounting fraud when looked at through any sort of objective lens, but its all "ok" because we have "accounting rules" that say you can claim something is worth more than it really is.

Sheesh. Such a revelation. NOT!

I've been pounding the table on this for over two years.

I appreciate that Bloomberg is finally picking up on it, but am dismayed that this shows up under "Opinion" and not hard news, which is, of course, the correct category.

The final straw

We are seeing rank dishonesty in dealings at all levels of society and the upper echelons, where politicians reside, I don't think are any more dishonest than what they've ever been but now the whole thing is coming out into the open and nobody cares, nobody resigns, people just grin in response to the revelations.

This one has to take the biscuit:

The Bar Council report that Brunel University and the British Science Association are calling for a review of the test for dishonesty.

The current test for dishonesty is the two-stage objective/subjective test set out by the Court of Appeal in R v Ghosh [1982] EWCA Crim:

“In determining whether the prosecution has proved that the defendant was acting dishonestly, a jury must first of all decide whether according to the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people what was done was dishonest. If it was not dishonest by those standards, that is the end of the matter and the prosecution fails.

If it was dishonest by those standards, then the jury must consider whether the defendant himself must have realised that what he was doing was by those standards dishonest. In most cases, where the actions are obviously dishonest by ordinary standards, there will be no doubt about it. It will be obvious that the defendant himself knew that he was acting dishonestly. It is dishonest for a defendant to act in a way which he knows ordinary people consider to be dishonest, even if he asserts or genuinely believes that he is morally justified in acting as he did.”

Dr Stefan Fafinski and Dr Emily Finch, criminal lawyers and social scientists at Brunel Law School, believe that the Ghosh test is flawed because it is based on an unattainable common standard of ‘dishonesty’.

To discover how public perceptions of dishonesty can vary (and therefore affect the outcome of criminal trials), Brunel University and the British Science Association announce the start of an international scientific study into dishonesty.

We don't even know what's dishonest anymore.

[key words] which bring the readers in

My post [school children] forced into sex is still running hot with 4 or 5 from each hundred clicking into this post directly, down from about 20 in each hundred. My post [responsibility] it might as well start with the boys was hardly looked at and now is completely off the map. And on a blog where 5-10 comments is usually my lot [quality compensates for lack of quantity], just have a look at how many there were on the child sex post! :)

[collective responsibility] and dan hannan's honesty


David Cameron, the Conservative leader, said Mr Hannan was wrong in his criticism of the NHS. Daniel Hannan said: “I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. We have a system where the most salient facts of it you get huge waiting lists, you have bad survival rates and you would much rather fall ill in the US.”

If you look at this post from yesterday, not that you need to as you already know fullwell, it's clear that Daniel Hannan was only speaking the truth.

Now this puts your humble blogger into a bind. I'm a paid up member of the Tories and the Tory bloggership, though wary of me as a bit left field, do see me as one of them in the end. However, my more major preoccupation is with the truth and the truth is that the NHS is $%^&*#ed. Every commenter yesterday said so, everyone I know and speak to here said so.

So, let's come back to David Cameron who himself is in a difficult position - he has a party line to uphold. A false party line which requires potential ministers and fellow MPs in general to lie to support the party line. Or was it that the problem stemmed from the comments being made whilst Dan Hannan was in America?

Are people seriously trying to say that America can't access its own material on the NHS? There's this thing, you see, called the internet. Half my readership is American and these guys ... well, let's confess it ... they're capable of talking, reading and listening and from that, horror of horrors, I actually learn about America and maybe, just maybe, they learn something about Britain. Yesterday, we all said the NHS was *&^#$%^ed. Are we being grossly disloyal to our nation bad-mouthing the NHS, on the grounds that an American might be reading our private words?

Look, not to put too fine a point on it - did Daniel Hannan breach the principle of Collective Responsibility to the Party Line? Was he disloyal to Britain? If something in Britain is totally $%*&^#$ed, should every Brit, in conversation with an American, say, "No, no, everything's fine over our way," whilst our American friend is looking at this post and seeing that it's not?

Where is the party line and where is collective responsibility when it's bleedin' obvious what the situation is? To anyone in the world.

I'd agree one needs to be loyal to one's organization when one is taking the shilling - one's firm, one's school and so on. But a country is not something you joined and signed on the dotted line to. It's something you were born or naturalized into. If you were born into it, I'd suggest you have far more right to say what you damn well like about it, wherever you are, with a view to making it right.

I've never bad-mouthed my country abroad and when I was in Russia, I never bad-mouthed Russia. But if I was pointedly asked about some aspect of that country, e.g. is it true that your NHS is not very good, then my answer might be, knowing the questioner had access to the web and can read a newspaper, "It could be better."

I suggest that that was the tone Daniel Hannan took. He strikes me as an honest sort of chap.

So where does that leave a flawed Westminster system where the important thing is not to tell the truth but to toe the party line? Surely that shows that the two party, adversarial system is seriously flawed? Surely it shows it's time to change it.

The question is - for what other system?

Thursday, August 13, 2009

[strikes at any age] a photo story

Those misunderstandings






Together again

[our nhs] what to think in the light of american comments


I've been reading a lot around the sphere about the American comments on our NHS and some on the left here have been pointing out the ludicrousness of those comments, a point well taken.

However, when the left then concludes from those ill-informed comments that in fact, the NHS is fine, I have to go to bloggers I know and trust, not necessarily left wing but including the left and see what they say. You see, as I don't get sick, I don't know much about the NHS and can only go on what others say.

Wat Tyler
, of the Taxpayers Alliance, says :

"Just how is it that a doubling in NHS spending has resulted in crisis ward closures, cancelled ops, and rationed drugs? The answer is a case study in the appalling wastefulness of Big Government."

Dr. Grumble is a self-confessed left wing doctor who works in an NHS hospital:

"The BMA has finally woken up to what is happening to our health service. Sadly it is too late. Powerful forces have lined up to nobble the political parties. Market forces and privatisation of NHS services are the future. There is no stopping it. The public do not want this but many out there are convinced that this will make the NHS more responsive and efficient. The ways of the Soviets have been seen to fail. The Soviet Union has been dismantled. Now it's time for the NHS to go the same way."

Calum Carr is a left wing blogger who states:

"Once I was naive. I believed that, I knew that, regardless of how strapped for cash was the NHS the one thing upon which we could rely was to be treated with compassion and caring. Very soon after I started accompanying Mrs Carr to medical appointments I was disabused of my silly and naive ideas.

Caring? Compassion?

They couldn't even do courtesy and respect and these two properties come before caring and compassion. Unless a patient is treated with respect and courtesy, forget anything better. We had to forget anything better."

So I wonder what to think of the NHS.

# Interesting post on the NHS and the Tories here.
# Nice one, courtesy Dearieme.

[picture quiz] five to test your grey matter

1. Which organization do they give their time for?

2. Glen plaid is also known as the Prince of Wales check, which has an over-check in a bright or contrasting color. The pattern was popularized by which Prince of Wales?

3. He'll overheat in hotter than 0°C, 10°C or 20°C?

4. What's her nationality originally?

5. What's the Archbishop's name?

Answers

Shriner, Edward VIII , 10°C, Australian, Tutu

[responsibility] it might as well start with the boys


The cover of the March 1997 Fortune magazine asks, "Is Your Family Wrecking Your Career?" Inside is an article headed "Oh, Quit Whining and Get Back to Work! It's heresy to say so, but let's say it anyway: Sometimes your job is more important than your kid's Kodak moment." The article describes the demands that top-ranked corporations place on working couples trying to raise children and make time for their families.

Pressures on the family today


The Family is the single greatest obstacle to the eugenic focus of the enemies of society – that vast mish-mash of financiers, New Agers, malcontents, feminazis, atheists, politicians, humanists, socialists, Marxists, one worlders and globalists and corporations are not making it any easier.

Huge resources have been disbursed to destroy the family – from Planned Parenthood and its antecedents through to the Mentoring programmes, the State accommodation and encouragement of single mother families and the irresponsibility of males, the decades old hashing of education through the agents of socialist thought and the complete revisionism of all texts and programmes, with the concomitant “closed shop” mentality of the shutting out of dissenting thought.

They’re all at it – from the Rockefellers, old European families et al to the young university student who is attracted by the seeming force of these unsustainable ideas and the fashionable lure of Enlightenment philosophy. The gay marriage rubbish, an aping of the power of the family, a temporary aberration which is in its element at the current moment but through simple biology can not be sustained for long, in terms of world history, is yet another element.

Why has there been such a sustained attack on the institution of the family, enshrined by the insitution of marriage, itself long perverted by the imposition of Pauline notions of male authority and the necessity of the female to obey? Why are the forces of darkness so intent on destroying this institution?

Society never introduced a decree that the family would be the model – it simply became that way. Now, it seems, new constructs are set to replace it. The article in the link above mistakenly blames capitalism, thereby leaving the door wide open for the really destructive forces to come in and put the nail in the coffin and yet some of the points made are valid.

All great societies were essentially groupings of clans – you can see it in its purest form in Scotland – and the great city states were families, the great families. It would be amusing if it weren’t so tragic that the great families, while dedicating trillions of dollars and euros to destroying the family unit amongst the hoi polloi, substituting the responsibility of the State for parenting instead, should, at the same time, be so jealously guarding the integrity of their own anciently corrupt and inbred family units.

The power of the family - therefore it must be destroyed

They recognize a simple truth – that where there is a heterosexual family, there can be found true power, real power. Thatcher’s “families and individuals” says it all – this is what society truly is. Not the Nanny State, aping the functions of the Family and incapable of carrying them out, not the consequent loss of the personal power of the citizen, not the twisted philosophy of the self-appointed guardians of our welfare whom I wouldn’t even give a job cleaning the toilets to.

It needs only the slightest amount of common sense to see that the Family does not need any externally imposed, dogmatic constraints, it doesn’t need religion because it is, in itself, a consequence of religion – of the beginnings of the world.

In a family, I, the father, am never going to be subordinate and yet neither is my wife because, far from the Pauline interpretation, the family transcends all boundaries of polity, philosophy and power and has its own unique dynamism, its own rules.

It is a biologically flexible and living functionality, absorbing all pressure, striking out when it needs, accommodating all its members in the matriarchal power of acceptance, tolerance and love, combined with the masculine urge to protect and defend, to provide for.

If the woman wants to work to the extent that she can combine her own desire for the wellbeing of the organization she has invested her life in, then the man and the woman work that out and together they can meet the pressure of the corporation urging the man and the woman to give their souls to the company. Together they can resist it, singly, they can't.

Money is often cited as a major factor in the breakup, often underlying other subsequent causes and money in our society is sick and tainted – it’s completely opposed to the well being of the family and the nation and serves the very people who would break up the Family by means of putting goods and services beyond the capacity of the combined income to cover and therefore sows the seeds of discontent.



The empowerment the family gives each parent

The Family is organic, it regenerates, it creates its own self-actualizing tendencies, feeds them, finds its own balance, is the prime focus of people’s thoughts. If it is well run, then there is some leisure time for all, the luxury of starting to think of where we are and our place in the universe.

It’s a complete unit in itself and society is merely a collection of families and those who were in their family but now find themselves outside the protective arms of that unit. People such as myself, for whom everyone seems to have died or passed out of sight.

I was looking at the legend of the Amazonian women and thought this significant:

Matrifocality refers to societies in which women, especially mothers, occupy a central position, and the term does necessarily imply domination by women or mothers.

Yes, yes, yes. But within a functioning family, the mother also has immense power to approve, condone, oppose and prevent. It’s close to the New Age idea of the great mother – she is great and in that small frame lies enormous power, more power than any human should want to have, within the confines of her own territory - her family.

Any sane man who once went down on his knee and begged her to marry him, remember, offering respect and reverence along with the lust [and if he didn’t lust for her – why marry her?] needs to treat his wife with respect and recognize, even if he might not say as much, that it is she who keeps everything running smoothly while his job is to take care of the protection and provision side. Yes, she can do it all on her own if she has to and work too. Yes, he can do that too, at a pinch but it works best together.

The woman has this attention to detail. She’s the lioness and heaven help anyone who crosses her. She’s also vulnerable, no matter what any Feminazi says and is entitled to take her share of comfort and support, as and when she needs it.

And what does he get out of it? He gets an absolute honey, a steady supply of nooky, kids he loves and much, more – he’s happier. Which studies would you like me to quote? Studies also abound that though it might be true that she is far happier in a single situation compared to a bad marriage and an uncaring father, she is certainly not as happy as in a loving, functioning marriage with someone who’s in it for her and for her family.

So let’s turn the focus onto the boys, onto the men.

Sexual prowess is satisfying one woman ... for decades

We’re effing idiots if we think that having nooky on the side is an affirmation of our sexual prowess. Far better to keep your own woman happy, without the need for externals.

That’s real power – a man who can satisfy his wife and keep her happy should be a hero of society, an achiever. A wife of mine, were she, hypothetically, to be interviewed and who answered that I had my faults but I was enough for her for the present is a much better advertisement for my power than a dozen chicks I claim to have bonked.

To me, a womanizer [such as Hugh Jensen in my novel] is a far lower person in my estimation and when he finally stops doing those things and starts accepting his responsibilities towards one woman, the bliss begins and he becomes a person a woman might conceivably want.

Because a woman who is treated right needs no feminism or this –ism or that –ism. She knows which side her bread’s buttered and so does he. Good arrangement all round. The secretary who turns you on might be a total honey but so is your wife if you’ve treated her as the object of reverence you started out doing when you asked her to marry you.

Sexual prowess, to me, is satisfying one woman and keeping her happy. And when she finds out [not from your lips, mind] that you rebuffed your secretary or maybe just never came on to her, that he keeps himself in check, imagine what that does for the self-esteem of your wife?

It’s a complete win-win and feeds on itself in keeping everything ticking over nicely.



Why two dozen rapists in a bar would do it

Now this is where men must stand tall and boys who wish to be men should learn. Let’s go to that situation Alison mentioned of the two dozen rapists in a bar. Why are they potential rapists? For many reasons and let me list some of them. Because:

1. They have been taught by reality that they can do this, that it’s all right to act this way towards a woman. The internet games, the porn which displays women as fuckable meat and continues to reinforce this in men’s minds, the feminism which has turned women from desirable people into whingy, whiny harpies, the philosophy they were indoctrinated into from kindergarten up which rejects the Judaeo-Christian ethic of respect for women and focuses instead on men’s supposedly diabolical need to oppress women, which pisses guys off no end – this, plus the natural arrogance of the male, particularly in packs, all goes to create an attitude to girls of getting the bang without any of the responsibility. Hey, we’re onto a good thing here, so let’s not knock it.

2. The ridiculous attitude of the female which jumps onto the Feminazi bandwagon, liberates itself so that “No” is not a word heard in its vocabulary, which dresses lewdly and walks into bars with two dozen potential rapists and then, on the strength of the twisted social cosntructs people sprout these days with a straight face, about women’s “rights” and how the law is on their side, she thinks she’s going to be completely safe and feels absolutely no need to take any responsibility for her own actions.

It’s a disaster waiting to happen.

3. Phil McGraw’s Lifelaw 8 - We teach people how to treat us, through our reactions.

Whether we like it or not, people treat us as they do because we have unconsciously, by our reactions, taught them which types of behaviour get results and which don't.

If they get what they want, then they keep that behaviour in their repertoire; if they don’t get it, they drop that behaviour and start a new one. The good news is that we can re-teach people how to treat us by changing our reactions to them.

4. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese wrote:

In practice, the sexual liberation of women has realized men's most predatory sexual fantasies. As women shook themselves free from the norms and conventions of sexual conduct, men did the same.



Stand up the real men

So where are the real men in our hypothetical? For a start, they’re not hanging about in a pack of two dozen potential rapists, leering at a slutternly woman, herself half drunk and less able to defend herself. If he is in that bar, he leads her out of it because, no matter how heroically inclined, two dozen big boys is not going to be overcome by one hero.

Does she deserve to be led out and defended? No – for the simple reason that she thinks she has the “right” to protection which she simply doesn’t. So why? Why would he defend her and do this?

Because he’s a man and a man is someone who can rise above the whys and wherefores, who knows she’s wrong in this but defends her anyway. And when she is right, he has the manhood to admit it. And when she goes on and on with her shopping list of his faults, he listens, kisses her and takes her out for a meal.

It’s a raging storm outside. Someone has to walk to the corner shop and get the milk. In this era of equality, he can ask her to go out and get it. But how is he going to feel when she is out in the storm and he’s snug as a bug in a rug in front of the fire? He’s going to feel a heel. It’s his job to go out and do the tough things because if he wants to call himself a man, then there are things he needs to do. Inconvenience is one of them.

But if she’d turned on him instead and ordered him to go or manipulated him or claimed her right as a woman or appealed to his chivalry, then he should sit in that armchair and mutter under his breath, to himself, “Bugger off. Go and get it yourself.”

All associations are voluntary. Anything someone does for another is voluntary. If you make love with me, it’s your voluntary decision. If I go to the shop for us to get the milk, it’s my business and any pressure form you or manipulation is going to see me dig my heels in. Associations and actions are voluntary.

If I do get off my butt and go and get that milk, the rain and sleet are hardly a problem and when I get back, it’s likely that though she says nothing, my stocks have gone up and when I see that, I’ll improve my chances of a nice night of love by offering to do something else again. That’s manipulation too but good manipulation.

That’s psychology, sister.



In summary

We are in a mess in society. Many men hate women and despite their protestations otherwise, many women hate men, single families abound, single predatory males combine and become packs to beat down the temerity of the female in whining about rights.

A bit of psychology would set all to rights. A bit of reasonableness. Legislating for me to treat you right is going to make me only keep within the letter of the law to avoid incarceration but treat you abominably whenever I can and leave you holding the baby.

And as for respect? [Hollow laugh]

You have to give someone an incentive to treat you right. This is what Lord Nazh meant by giving her the respect she deserves. Vice versa too. Phil McGraw’s lifelaws again.

Right now, not tomorrow

1. Fathers need to get their own act in order and stop putting their pecker about, praising this in conversation and tacitly teaching their sons that this is quite OK. Without the market for indiscriminate pecker poking, the women will also get the message that the real men are keeping it for their wives.

2. Fathers then need to get hold of their sons, swallow their own mistreatment by women backed by the government ... and lay down the law to the boys. You impregnate a girl and you pay for it for the rest of your life, not necessarily through marriage because that produces a hate filled home for the child but through being close by and providing.

I’m not speaking of what the girl is demanding or the bloody CSA – they can go and get knotted, particularly the CSA, the homewrecking agency. No, I mean doing what is right to do and if enough fathers do this, sons get the message too and after the second or third pregnancy he's casued, the boy begins to see that this thing is getting expensive, particularly if father refuses to fork out.

This is not the morally acceptable alternative but it is efficacious. It also helps us start to reassert societal disdain over the antics of the young male. The women, with their government backing, have no chance of turning the young male around but fathers can achieve it with each and every son. However, if you've alienated the fathers through your feminism and using the government to beat the man down, he's hardly likely to join you in curbing the boys.

You need to present a united front and do it together.

3. Now the mothers get hold of the girls and lay down the law about using pregnancy to get onto the dole and about being loose and slutternly. Mothers show daughters the lives of the best women in the world and impart some very feminine advice in the way mothers used to teach their daughters.

Loose girls who put it about now gradually fall into disdain from the other girls and it is seen, not only as low to sleep around but also ultimately disempowering because to do so frees up the boys to treat the girls without respect.

Once girls grasp the principle that to sleep around frees up the boys to treat them as sluts, they're on the way to empowering themselves again and in consequence, the society gets behind them again and defends the very thing they wanted all along - choice. Choice only comes from a society which recognizes your right to say no. If you never say no, that right, by definition, diminishes.

Thus are solved the problems of massive numbers of teenage pregnancies [there’ll always be some], family relations, hugely expensive state control of private lives, the drug issue and lots of other benefits.

Kids like feeling parameters – they’ll always kick against the boundaries but at least the boundaries will be back now, to be kicked against.


One of the nicest pics ever

Finally

Someone has to start this process. If men wish to claim the titular role of head of the family, then it needs to start with them. They need to give the lead or heed the call to help women and just get in and start doing what they should, starting with re-educating the boys.get back some of their safety, not from government assurances but from the genuine wish of the male to respect them.

Once more, that respect is never going to come form whinging about rights or getting the government to beat the men down. It can only come from the men wishing to respect the woman and the only way that is going to happen is for the woman to make the choice to respect the man again.

It only needs the reestablishment of a culture of respect where the boys generally look down their noses at loose girls and don’t employ double standards themselves, for the girls to fall in line very quickly. If the boys will keep friendships just this side of openly sexual, give or take some kissing but go all out for one particular girl the way they used to, learning that there is a cost to nooky, if a culture of restraint reestablishes itself, then we are someway along the path.

The men have to shoulder the lion’s share of the burden of getting this going and there are forces arrayed against achieving this, those forces listed at the top of this post. Those forces are formidable but are only there to be overcome. Hell, what's a man for, after all?

Any fear we men have of our authority in society slipping away thanks to the nanny state and feminism now disappears once we take the bull by the horns and start by accepting our responsibilities in our own backyard.

We only ever need one woman to admire us – our own woman and she’s more than enough. End of story.

Call me old-fashioned, call me out of touch with today’s realities and the new culture. Call me anything you like and it’s like water off a duck’s back. Look, people, we will come back to a position of sanity in this society whether the malcontents and destroyers want it or not. There are things which are quite clearly right and things quite clearly wrong, irrespective of religion.

Let’s set our face against the storm and go for the things which are right. Starting with us, the men.

Hypocrisy

14:28 A comment's just been made that it's all well and fine me having had my fun and now I'm getting out of the eligible age range [it was put in different words :)], I turn around and tell men what to do. Let's put it this way, lads - just because we've been a bit naughty in the past and can now see the error of our ways, shouldn't we blog on that?

There seems to me a simple logic:

If you spend all that time and money getting a wife, then presumably [and I'm directing this at the men with partners], we're hot for that girl., right? OK, so we have her with us, according to the theory, for the rest of our procreative life and what do we do? Go off with another one on the side. Seems illogical to me. Wouldn't it be best to work on the one we've got and keep her happy?


[mini crossman] beefed up suv


Mini Crossman - the next phase of the Mini story.

4WD, 5 door, 1.5 litre 4 cylinder, 6 speed, around

£15,500, tb released in 2010

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

[collocations and oxymorons] which is which


Collocations, for those a bit out of practice, are words which are quite often found together, e.g. strong coffee or heavy drinker. While they're not antonyms of oxymorons, they can be placed in a separate column. An oxymoron, as you know, is "a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction", for example deafening silence or an open secret.

Under the headings Collocation or Oxymoron, where would you place the following expressions?

# military intelligence
# democratic socialism
# unbiased opinion
# fact-finding holiday
# Marxist paradise
# political discussion
# efficient health system
# dishonest politicians
# honest Obama
# ethical blogging

Perhaps you can think of some others which would go under either heading.

[gilligan's girls] which would you choose


In checking Gilligan's Island on Wiki for the economics post today, naturally I looked up this Ginger [the one in the white bikini] and read:

When regular shooting began, Louise clashed with the producers, because she believed that she was to be the main focus of the show (despite its title). Her character was originally written as a sarcastic and sharp-tongued temptress, but Louise argued that this was too extreme and refused to play it as written.

Louise continued to clash with producers and was the only cast member who refused to return for any of the TV movies that followed the series' cancellation, and the fourth season, which was later canceled to make room for Gunsmoke, saying that the role had destroyed her career as a serious actress.

Uh-huh. Your humble blogger took one look at her photo and thought, "Thanks but no thanks." Trying to find the brunette's write-up, [the one in the yellow, playing Mary Ann], she was right at the bottom of the cast list. Clicking on her name, Wiki didn't even bother giving her a picture. So I found out that she is still doing philanthropic work today for the disabled [and for certain other people according to the police], I found the few photos of her and thought, "Yes please."

Wonder why. Then, to my surprise, at the foot of the Gilligan's Island write-up, it stated:

The question of which one men prefer, and to a lesser extent, who women view themselves to be more like, has endured long after the end of the series. It has inspired videos, essays, a 1993 Budweiser beer commercial, and even the occasional sermon.

Interesting question. Which of the two do you think men prefer or women view themselves as?

Results below

By most accounts, the wholesome, low-maintenance Mary Ann has consistently outpolled the glamorous but demanding Ginger since the very beginning. Right on - totally agree.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, let me present Exhibit B: the youtube:



This time, which of the three?

You can read the comments yourself by rightclicking on the youtube and going tothe youtube page. And your humble blogger? What was his choice?

Answer below

1. Light blue....... 2. White .......849. Ginger. Is there a tale in here somewhere? :

Does this change your mind? Hee hee:


[large hadron collider] brain fodder


1. Detection of the Higgs boson would help explain which phenomenon of physics, e.g. time, vectors? What?

2. Near which city is the LHC buried deep in the earth?

3. If 3 of the 4 fundamental interactions are electromagnetism, strong interaction and weak interaction, what is the fourth?

4. One aspect to be studied is supersymmetry which has a bearing on QF theory. What is QFT?

5. Who said, in a BBC interview: "I think it will be much more exciting if we don't find the Higgs. That will show something is wrong, and we need to think again. I have a bet of one hundred dollars that we won't find the Higgs."

Answers

mass, Geneva, gravitation [gravity], quantum field theory, Stephen Hawking

[wordless wednesday] no words necessary

[macro-economic delusions] part five – the island


Here is Part 4

Scenario 1


Let's imagine that seven men meet on the island of Iona to discuss the new British Central Bank they're thinking of setting up in three years. They are:

John Nelson, Chairman of the National Monetary Commission and associate of Whites Investment Services.

Andrew Platt, Permanent Head of the Treasury.

Frank Jones, president of the International Bank, representing BIS interests.

Henry David, senior partner of Whites Investment Services.

Norman Charles, president of Whites Investment Services' London branch.

Magnus Pike, head of Whites Investment Services' Trust Company.

Warren Paul, board member of the BIS and the financial brain of the meeting.

They travel to the island separately, under cover of darkness and at the meeting, use only first names.

What would you conclude from that meeting, had you known about it? When word gets out later that there had been such a meeting, an explanation is given to parliament that a feasibility study was being undertaken, representing all spectra of the financial community and the government.

The two MPs who tabled questions in parliament on the issue are killed when their aeroplane crashes, two years later, on the way to a European summit. All innocent and above board, yes?

... ... ...

Let's change the topic.

Here is a list of those present at the 1910 Jeckyll Island meeting which mapped out the form of the Federal Reserve idea, to be passed in 1913:

Nelson W Aldrich, Republican whip in the Senate, Chairman of the National Monetary Commission, business associate of J P Morgan, father-in-law to John D Rockefeller, Jr., and maternal grandfather to Nelson Rockefeller.

Abraham Piatt Andrew, Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury.

Frank A Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank of New York, the most powerful of the banks at that time, representing William Rockefeller and the international investment banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb, and Co,

Henry P Davison, senior partner of J P Morgan Company.

Charles D Norton, president of J P Morgan's First National Bank of New York.

Benjamin Strong, head of J P Morgan's Bankers Trust Company.

Paul M Warburg, a partner in Kuhn Loeb and Company, and a representative of the Rothschild banking dynasty in England and France, and brother to Max Warburg, who was head of the Warburg Banking consortium in Germany and the Netherlands.

Paul M Warburg was the only expert on the European Model of a central bank, and thus he became the principle architect and guiding mind throughout all the discussions.

Benjamin Strong, head of J P Morgan's Bankers Trust Company would eventually become Chairman/Head of the Federal Reserve, from 1914 to his death in 1928.

They travel to the island separately, under cover of darkness and at the meeting, use only first names.


Scenario 2

Based on Lewis Even: The Money Myth Exposed

Frank, the carpenter, Paul, a farmer, Jim, an animal breeder, Harry, an agriculturist, Tom the prospector and a mineralogist are shipwrecked on an island.

Under the simple economic system which developed, one thing was beginning to bother them more and more: they had no form of money.

Barter, the direct exchange of goods for goods, had its drawbacks. The products exchanged were not always at hand when a trade was discussed. For example, wood delivered to the farmer in winter could not be paid for in potatoes until six months later. Sometimes one of the men would have a large item that he wished to exchange for a number of smaller articles produced by different men, at different times.

It was agreed that a money system would be convenient, but none knew how to set up one. They knew how to produce true wealth - goods - but producing money (a symbol of this wealth) was quite beyond them.

One day, a banker was shipwrecked on the island and he promised them he could set up a money system quite easily and everyone would be happy. He had the men unload, from the wreck, a printing press, paper and a special container, then they built him a house to live in and trade from.

But what was in that container? He promised to tell them the next day. In the middle of the night, he went into the forest, found an excellent spot and buried his container there.

Next day, he told them that it contained gold and asked how much money they'd need to start off. They decided $200. Oliver went off and printed up enough money in $1 bills, distributed them and told them that the bills only had value in terms of gold, the gold hidden away on the island, to remove temptation.

Frank asked whether the money was all theirs. ''Oh no,'' said Oliver. ''You own only what you make. This money is lent to you at a nominal interest rate but to keep things all shipshape, I'll need you to just sign here that your goods you've produced this year are collateral against this loan.''

Mightily impressed by these notes, which carried that touch of gravitas, they took their supply away and began trading in them. With trade now simplified, the Gross Island product doubled and everyone was prosperous.

As the day of repayment drew near, Tom was in a quandary. He had to repay $216 but only had $35 in his pocket. Actually, everyone was in bother because they were so busy producing goods that they hardly gave the matter their attention and the mathematics said that there were $1000 circulating but the interest was $80 – money which didn't exist.

Oliver could claim their goods.

As it turned out, he was a kindly soul, dedicated to the interests of the islanders and he told them they need only repay the $8 and hold on to the $1000 between them, which, through normal attrition, had reduced anyway to $900. The $900 still belonged to Oliver, plus the now non-existent $100 debt. He assured them though that he'd not ask for the capital, as long as they kept repaying the interest.

He further suggested that they collect a portion of money every so often in what they could call taxes and that would be held for the common good. He'd be happy to handle the running of these taxes.

Once they'd gone, Oliver sat back in his counting house and reflected that the five men were good men but quite stupid, really quite stupid. If they woke up, not only to this but started asking about the container, he might be thrown off a cliff. His safety was in his respectability and the signatures he had on the documents – these five were good citizens and would never break their word.

As each contributed taxes for the common good, some were annoyed that they had to contribute more for the same services. Not only that but more and more was being left with Oliver to mind and so they had to up production to compensate, causing overwork and sleepless nights.

They had a meeting with Oliver. ''We're going further and further in debt to you.''

''Well yes, boys but whenever you find yourself in a tight corner, come to me and I'll lend you more to tide you over. The taxes will go up and the interest rate might change to reflect changing economic circumstances but your production will also be up so all will be well.''

Now it got nasty and they finally refused to pay another cent. Oliver immediately foreclosed on Bill, to frighten the others and it worked but he wasn't safe yet. So, having noticed a difference in political opinion between two who held more staid views, two progressives and one who had no opinions, he printed newspapers for each group and divided the island.

With their minds on parliamentary politics, they wouldn't be thinking as much about the banking scheme.

One day, a bottle washes up on the beach and Harry finds it. In it are some notes a young man had obviously been writing on a boat somewhere. It mentioned social credit and Harry set to in the evenings and read it. Next day, he explained it to the others.

''Each wants $200 to begin with. Very well. We write $200 to the credit of each. Each immediately has $200."

''Frank buys some goods from Paul for $10. I deduct $10 from Frank, leaving him $190. I add $10 to Paul, and he now has $210."

''Jim buys from Paul to the amount of $8. I deduct from Jim $8, leaving him $192. Paul now has $218."

''Paul buys wood from Frank for $15. I deduct $15 from Paul, leaving $203. I add $15 to Frank's account, and it goes back to $205."

''Yes but where will we get these notes?'' asked Jim.

''It hardly matters what the notes are. We'll decide on these palm leaves as our money but only palm leaves all five of us sign. No one can cheat for either that reason and because we all know the total amount issued anyway.''

Next day, they paid back the $900 plus pledging sufficient man-hours of labour to make up the shortfall to Oliver and that was all he was going to get. The interest payments stopped immediately and they forced him, on pain of being thrown off the cliff, where the container of gold was.

Oliver knew this was his death warrant and inadvertently glanced anxiously at a log. The other five searched and eventually found the container under the log. With one blow of an axe, the lid came off and all there was inside was sand, like the sand on the beach.

Oliver ran hell for leather towards the beach. although they wouldn't have killed him just yet as they'd pledged man-hours to make up the shortfall, remember.

My notes: The A+B theory has practical problems but the nice thing about Social Credit is that it:

1. prevents money being an end and turns it into a tool of exchange;
2. wealth then is tied into productiveness, as it should be;
3. there is a CBI involved, which is nice;
4. it is stable, cutting out the banking scam and preventing artificial ups and downs;
5. Fabians and bankers [peas from the same pod] hate it because it prevents the forcing of citizens into a cycle of poverty and debt and gives effective power back to them without the need for socialism.

It produces happiness in that people have enough from their labour to give them the things needed for a comfortable life. It stresses the work ethic - that if you work hard on non-economic sabotage things, in other words, things people actually need, then you can increase the benefit to your family through your own hands.

The CBI covers you during natural fluctuations.

For modern conditions, it would need an overhaul but the principle is sound, which is why you'll always see it vehemently opposed by the groups just mentioned plus LSE economists.

If you put this together with Lord T's Libertarianism Lite [not yet published], then you have a practical system which really can be implemented. It's exciting just thinking about it.

[blogger] taking the michael?

Something I've been thinking of for some time. Harry Hook has a video commercial on condoms and when I left a message, the word verification was p-h-a-l-l. This is the truth. As I asked over there, do you think Blogger know? Do you think they're TtheP?

[the inner child] must it always meet danger


Why do we do any extreme sports? Why do we push ourselves? If you look at this post and at the video in the middle on Ellen MacArthur, you'll see a person pushed beyond endurance and yet meeting the challenge. It has to be good for the character.

Is it the inner child in yourself, the sense of wonderment? I'm not sure. Is the inner child closely aligned with the eternal quest to push onwards and upwards?

The adventurer and risk taker, The Talking Bear, speculates on whether it is there or not:

Do we really lose this inner child that is, or was, inside each and every one of us at some point in time? Do we chase our inner child away because of some embracing act or rude statement by another? I do not know the answers to any of these questions. I do know, however, that I have spent a lot of time trying to find my inner child and embrace that wonderful ability to imagine and explore that world of 'what if".

Whatever, there does seem a sort of spirituality to nature, to the forest, to the mountain, to achievement.

Danger? Oh yes - almost any sport can be dangerous, even abseiling or rappelling as the Americans like to call it:

The BMC’s Equipment Failure Investigations include abseil ropes cut through, failed anchors, detached karabiners, and abseil devices that ‘mysteriously’ did not control the speed of descent.

Add to this clothing and long hair tangled in the abseil device; trips, flips and swings; the end of a rope being reached unexpectedly; plus the odd jammed rope, sharp edge and falling rock or piece of a equipment, and you have a much clearer understanding of the hazards of abseiling and why it claims lives. As with all methods of descending abseiling is dangerous; but it is particularly unforgiving of any mistakes or failures.

For most experienced climbers abseiling is an activity to be avoided unless it is the only way of getting off a climb or down a mountain - for the unwary it can be a fast introduction to discover the quickest way to reach the ground.

In the catamaran anecdote I told in the post on the Fastnet [link above], one broken trapeze wire and that was me gone. I imagine the fallbacks and failsafes in rappelling are doubled up but still - what's the chance? On the other hand, not to take risks is not the way to go because one loses one's edge and fails to meet inconvenient barriers in the correct spirit.

Not to venture seems, to me, to be a one way, downhill trip to one's death inside.