[decency] an issue of style

Chivalry is not always decency - witness Guinevere

It’s interesting that, while decency appears to be the new norm in dealings between agencies, firms and the public – inclusiveness, non-abuse policies etc. - it seems to have departed in interpersonal relations.

Our local council is whatever you want to say about it but I observed, in officers’ dealings with the public, if not compassion, then at least a willingness to help out. It was pretty impressive to see, as I waited on the comfortable couch, how each new enquirer was dealt with.

If only that could permeate the sphere of how we deal with each other. Regular readers are well aware of this blog’s promotion of chivalry as a mode of behaviour towards one another but I admit I’ve failed to be chivalrous in the past to people who act indecently themselves and indulge in unmitigated lying to save their butts – witness the events of last year.

I should have lived up to my own ideals and just let it go most like.

What is decency?

For a start, it’s not being a stern moralist who would snuff the very lifeblood out of enjoyment. I look at the hymn writer in the pic to the right [possibly William Kethe] and though it might be doing the man a disservice, I shouldn’t have liked to have to operated under his stern gaze the whole time. He might have been the kindest and most compassionate of men but I simply can’t live up to his ideals. Somerset Maugham’s Rain touched on the issue too.

Brrrr!

On the other hand, I’m at odds with today’s world where you’re in a shopping arcade, say, and all you hear is constant stream of bile coming out of the mouths of kids, especially the girls who are trying to be every bit as bad as the boys and this is their way to find acceptance. That sort of thing can be seen in the antics of bloggers like John Edwards’ harpies and Britbloggers like Caroline Hunt. I mean, those things are just low.

A lady I admire recently said she was going to grow old disgracefully but it’s important to discern the difference between what she means and lowlife gutter antics.

Decency, to me, is not a moral issue but an issue of style. A much admired phrase of the Brits and one I’ve used negatively quite often is ‘the triumph of style over substance’.

Now I’m not so sure.

In a rugby analogy, one can admire the sheer danger posed by the disciplined, gritty Englishman, which will win more games when conditions are bad but to watch – give me the freeflowing style of the Aussies, New Zealanders or Barbars please.



There’s nothing wrong with style as long as it’s based on substance. I ask where either the substance or the style is in today’s devil’s children? They’re so enamoured of fashion but where’s their own personal style?

In my landlord days, I had to throw out a couple of tenants who’d trashed the house and after cleaning up the ordure and repairing the infrastructure, one letter which stayed in my mind, amongst the unpaid bills and final demands, was a circular from the “Young Sophisticates Club’.

Sigh.

The problem is, if you take decency to mean that we should all strut around like lords and ladies, making chivalrous gestures, this is not what I’m driving at.

What about sex?

Within the personal space of two people, there are three basic orifices and I see no problem with that, nor could I bring myself to be upset by the thought of two women exploring the possibilities. Don’t ask about the other because I was traumatized by men as a child and find that disgusting.

But even in the middle of quite anatomical congress with your partner, you can still be decent, in the sense of celebrating and revering her, even if your actual physical deeds are only one step up from animal rutting.

Decent wags?

I mean, carnal knowledge is meant to be that, isn’t it – knowledge? Surely it’s your duty to take time to explore, as Leonard Cohen wrote, ‘those holy hills, that deep ravine’. The notion of coition as a means of getting your quota, rolling off and falling asleep is a cop out as far as I’m concerned.

What a waste of good rutting time – after all, you do have until the dawn. Besides, there’s a challenge in getting her over the line, a challenge to your ingenuity. Don’t get me wrong - wham bam, thank you ma’am is fine in the sense that you have to use a bit of the old steam train, women expect no less but you can still still do that and be at least sentient, monitoring to see that she’s OK along the way.

That’s what I mean by decency.

Swearblogging

Hey, just because I don’t go in for it myself, except to punctuate a particular point, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its place. The crime is when it supplants style and doesn’t serve any literary purpose.

We keep coming back to style.

That’s the chief crime of today’s age – the assault on style in the scramble for Procrustean mediocrity. And in my eyes, this is very closely interwoven with the concept of decency.

[sonus] understanding issues: part I

This is the first of a series of five articles by Sonus [the Anon of the comments sections on this blog]. In view of the material here, I'll hold my own post '2012' over until tomorrow. This series will be linked in the sidebar in a few days. Thanks, Sonus, for the post.




The problem I have in writing an essay like this, is where to start?

Or rather....

What is the knowledge base of my readership?

If the knowledge base of my audience is inadequate, how can I explain the problem, have it recognised, and how to debate a solution?

So I find that to begin, a wider explanation of the current situation is needed.

We live in a financial system that is dominated by, or rather, called, a Fiat, financial system, which uses Fractional Reserve Lending as part of its business model.

Let's examine those terms.

A Fiat system is a false system, an un-backed system, that is, there is nothing of intrinsic value to back the promise on a Sterling note, other than the promise to pay the bearer with another sterling note, - another promise to pay the bearer. This is accepted as a medium of exchange because the Government says it is, and because the government recognises it as a legal way to pay government tax demands. It is “legal tender”. Sterling notes, indeed any currency notes in any Fiat system, are “irredeemable”, ie the promissory note can only be replaced by another promissory note. They are however accepted as a medium of exchange. The ultimate backer for any paper promise to pay the bearer with another paper promise is the issuing government, and that ultimately falls to the responsibility of the taxpayer resident in the issuing country, ie, the ability of the issuing government to tax the population of that country to be able to pay the debts that the government has already incurred.

It has not always been like this.

Prior to 1971, when president Nixon cancelled the right to exchange the US $ paper currency for gold on demand, at a fixed price, the system was not Fiat, ie it had the backing of gold.

Excessive expenditure by the Federal Government had resulted in the issuance of large amounts of paper dollars, and these were held by foreign governments. Several foreign governments, notably France, began to worry about the level of debt incurred by the US government, and demanded payment, not in paper dollars, but in gold. This created a demand for gold that would have drained the US gold reserves. The decision was taken to end the convertibility of the US dollar into gold. Henceforth US debts would only be repaid in paper dollars. The Dollar became Fiat.

The second term used was Fractional Reserve Lending.

Fractional reserve lending mainly arose as a matter of operational convenience.

Originally Gold and sometimes Silver (in certain geographical areas) were used as “monetary metals”. They were used as ingots of defined purity, or made into coins of various sizes and defined purity. As a matter of convenience and security, these were stored in premises held by people who became known as “money changers”, an ancient profession, mentioned in the Bible, in Egyptian hieroglyphs, and in Sumerian tablets.
Receipts for precious metal deposits were given by the money changers, and it became the norm over many years, for the receipt holders to use them for trading purposes, rather than the physical transfer of bullion.

Thus the modern “bank note”, or promissory note was born, - the promise to pay on demand.

Also over time, the money changers began to notice that not all owners of deposited bullion would seek to withdraw their bullion at the same time, and over many years they began to issue “loans” to borrowers, by way of debt obligations, - promissory notes they could present to a third party to obtain goods or services immediately on “credit”, and repay the debt to the money lender over time, together with an interest element.
After many years, in diverse countries, a ratio of 10% seems to have evolved, That is only 10%, on average, of depositors, would seek the return of their capital at any one time. The money changers were thus able to lend out ten times the amount of money (gold, or by this time other securities too) on deposit, as paper,without fear of insolvency.

Imagine that, the Banks, (for that is what the money changers had evolved into) were able to create 90% of their raw material, - money, - out of nothing, charge interest on 100% of their loans, and yet some currently still make monumental losses.

Look at it another way.

A bank pays interest to its depositors of (say) 3%. And that 3% is paid on effectively 10% of the loans it can create, and lend to borrowers at (say)5%.

Or, the interest it pays to deposits of £1M over a year (let's assume a static model for simplicity) at 3%, is £30,000.

Via Fraction Reserve Lending, with deposits of £1M, it is able to lend out £10M, and charge 5% interest on £10M, which is £500,000.

So £500,000 interest earned against £30,000 interest paid out. Then add in the £10M of capital repayments over time, remembering that £9M is pure profit, that the bank had created out of nothing, and you begin to understand just how profitable, or rather the extent of banking gross margins, that the banking model can deliver!

Naturally, that is a very simplistic explanation, and banking has evolved into a much more complex industry than portrayed, however, to better understand the evolution of banking, I would suggest this link .

This is a 3.5hour video, filmed in the US in the late '90s.

It is very revealing.

At this point for further details you should also acquire and read the book, - “The Creature From Jekyll Island”, written by G. Edward Griffin.

So, now you are an expert on the corruption of bankers, their centuries long endeavours to impose their debt based financial system on the US nation, copying the UK system of debt created “money”, and the unscrupulous methods employed to achieve these ends. The profitability of the debt-based financial model was their prime motivation coupled with their knowledge of the power that such a system would give them, to wield over whatever country they managed to subjugate into their system.

Not for them any notions of “national” pride or loyalty to a host nation. International branches of the same bank would arm both protagonists in any international war, and reap the rewards from both combatants. In fact the financing of wars, and subsequent reparations, were recognised very early in the games as being their most profitable activities. Naturally warring parties could not be funded, since the looser would be unable to pay, until the authorities in the warring parties were able to instigate a method of national taxation on the populace. The Napoleonic wars created the first income taxes in England, with the Rothschild Dynasty funding both parties. In many cases the providers of funds were able to choose the eventual victors, and finance flowed that would guarantee the desired outcome. This became the “National Debt”.

Now THAT is power.

However, nothing really changes: - Politicians, or minor aristocracies decide to wage war on a neighbour, convince the local population of a “common enemy” and the need to attack/defend, and suddenly the debt incurred and the interest payments become the problem of the entire population, while the banks/politicians/aristocracy, benefit!

Naturally, once “stock exchanges” were developed (initially Government bonds were the Rothschild favourite), the financiers were able to make the correct investments well before the event.

They rapidly grew very wealthy.

For thousands of years, gold, and intermittently, silver, have been regarded as monetary metals, and have been used in the manufacture of coins, - money. From the Sumerian civilisation, (which also used other commodities for monetary/barter purposes) through Egypt, Greece, Roman civilisations, their use was common. All through history currency issuing powers have sought to get more from their limited supply of precious metals, by the debasement of their coinage. This would take several forms, - reducing the precious metal content of the coin, reducing the overall weight of the coin, increasing the face value of the coin while maintaining the quality. Either way, the population viewed the act as devaluing the currency, as prices of other commodities, grains, etc were adjusted upwards by traders/importers in terms of the face value of the currency, in order to achieve the same QUANTITY of precious metal content.

This was inflation, it debased the currency of the realm, and mass protests featured strongly against this, particularly in the declining years of the Roman Empire as the practice became prevalent. Eventually, as the Roman Empire began to collapse, the quantity of money in circulation began to contract rapidly, and the entire economy of the Western Roman world fell into heavy deflation, the velocity of money also contracted heavily, and what is now known as “The Dark Ages” descended on the entire remnants of the Western Roman Empire.

This lasted for hundreds of years.

Many modern writers are drawing parallels with the current financial problems facing the West, and the US in particular. They point to an exported manufacturing base, internal price inflation, and military over-stretch, with balance of payments deficits, and a debased currency.

The populations in those days regarded monetary metals both as money, which is both a medium of exchange, and a store of value. Modern western writers seem to wish to prevaricate on these features, arguing that gold and silver may well be stores of value, but they are not money. Those writers forget history, and assume that fiat regimes dominate the world. Many current societies still use barter, still use monetary metals, and I can speak from experience that both Krugerrands and UK Sovereigns are regarded throughout the world as money, and their value is based on their gold content, priced at current prices. UK retail banks may now be totally divorced from monetary metals, and no longer buy or sell gold or silver in any form, leaving that activity to specific dealers. This is certainly not true for the majority of the remaining world.

Perhaps the most successful, though short-lived bankers of all times, were the Templars. But then again, perhaps they were/are, not that short-lived after all!

The Albigensian Crusade in Languedoc ended in 1244, but it was 62 years before King Philippe IV of France, and Pope Clement V were in a position to harass the Knights Templar for their reported vast wealth. Having murdered two Popes, Pope Boniface VIII, and his successor, Pope Benedict XI, Philippe installed his puppet Bertrand de Got, Archbishop of Bordeaux, as Pope Clement V, in 1305.

Philippe drew up his list of accusations against the Templars. Heresy was easiest, as it was known that the Templars did not hold the doctrines of the Virgin Birth, and the Crucifixion. Also known was that their diplomatic and business affairs involved dealing with Jews, Gnostics, and Muslims.

Philippes plan was to strike on Friday 13th of October, 1307, and it would be an international (as far as it could be organised) strike, involving hundreds of armed men, but principally throughout France.

In 14th Century France it was the practice for aristocratic families to have sons within the Church, as Bishops, or Abbots of allied orders. The Chaplain of the Manor of La Buzadiere was such a nobleman, and shortly before the Papal edict against the Templars was enacted, he entertained seven Templar guests at his castle, and fully informed them of Philippes plans. The Knights Templars were Gaston de la Pierre Phoebus, Guidon de Montanor, Gentilis de Foligno, Henri de Montfort, Louis de Grimoard, Pierre Yorick de Rivault, and Cesare Minvielle.

The Knights immediately departed for Paris to inform their hierarchy of the plans. Runners were despatched to spread the word. The Grand Master of the Templars was Jacques de Molay. He arranged for the Templar treasure, stored in their Chapter House in Paris, to be transferred to La Rochelle on the Brittany coast, from where it was shipped, together with as many Templars who could get there, in eighteen galleys. Most of the ships sailed to Scotland, beyond the reach of Papal inquisitors, since Scotland under King Robert the Bruce, that is the King and the entire nation, had been excommunicated by the Pope for taking up arms against the Catholic King Edward II of England. The Templars were made welcome in Scotland, with many (around 50) settling in the Mull of Kintyre region. (Interestingly, several ships sailed to the Americas, where buildings and graves can be found identifying them as Knights Templars – they had access to copies of the same maps as Christopher Columbus used in his quest, years later)

The Papal edict of Scots excommunication was eventually lifted in 1323, when Pope John XXII recognised Robert the Bruce as the true King of Scots. As a reward for Templar loyalty at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, and in order to further hide the Templars, in 1317 Robert the Bruce hid the Templars under a new organisation, - the Order of the Elder Brethren of the Rosy Cross. The King of Scots was installed as the hereditary Sovereign Grand Master, and from that time whoever held the office of chancellery was known as the Prince, (or Count) St Germain. Gaston de la Pierre Phoebus, (one of the seven knights) had escaped to Scotland, and since the Pope held the international reins of Chivalric Orders, Gaston, as senior Knight of the Rosy Cross, arranged for a meeting with Pope John XXII at Avignon. Pope John agreed to issue a Charter, providing his nephew, Jacques de Via, became the operative Grand Master. De Via died on 6th May, 1317, and Guidon de Montanor (another of the seven Knights) was elected Grand Master. The Charter of Incorporation, signed by the Pope was duly presented to King Robert the Bruce.

The lifting of the Papal Edict in 1323 caused many historian to assume that the Knights Templar must have been disbanded in Scotland. Nothing could be further from the truth. Robert the Bruce had successfully hidden them behind the cloak of a new Chivalric order, duly Chartered by the Pope.

It was during these Templar influenced times that the Scottish Banking System evolved from the Orders financial experience in Europe and the Middle East. Scottish lands held significant Gold deposits, and the Templars were quick to commence their extraction. This wealth was one of the reasons that Plantagenet England so desired dominion over Scotland.

Today there are several active Gold Mines in Scotland.


With a Mystery Girl, a refreshment break.

Part 2 of this series can be read here.


It says 'written by James Higham below. Actually, it was written by Sonus but I can't reformat the author in my template.

[freaky friday] comments please

[them] out of the closet

Two emails arrived in the past week, one from Anon, he of the long, linked comments in the comments sections and another from a blogfriend of mine, asking who ‘Them’ is and what they do. The email subject line was ‘Conspiracy Theory’ which pretty well set the tone for any ensuing ‘discussion’.

This blog suggests that there is no conspiracy.

I don’t believe there are people working for their own ends, except in the context of working for a higher boss. Them, [third person plural], are simply sheep themselves, as we all are.

The last Bond film raises some good questions in a fictional setting. Who was behind Le Chiffre? Mr. White. Who was behind Mr. White? People like Dominic Greene. Who was behind Greene? Mathieu Amalric. Who was behind him? The film doesn’t say because it’s getting closer to the great houses and the franchise can’t afford to step on the real toes.

Who’s behind the great houses?

To me, conspiracy suggests some sort of joint action for their own goals. I suggest that these people, the Sutherlands and Mandelsons of the world, are just as much sheep in the hands of a different shepherd. So yes, they collude, just as Common Purpose graduates collude … but for a higher purpose.

People who suggest there is no collusion going on in the world make me smile. If there was no collusion, then what were the Roosevelt anti-trust acts? What is insider trading legislation for?

‘Them’ themselves, if they could be bothered with me at all, might be intrigued what explanation I could give to the sceptical reader as to who They are. Even usage of the third person plural pronoun, They know full well, is a bit of subterfuge.

I’d like to put an analogy here.

If you look at the situation in Darfur, you might be led to believe that there was evil going on there – babies’ eyes gouged out, people tied back to back and burned, villages razed and so on. If you look at Gary Brecher’s article on Algeria, you might be forgiven for thinking that some sort of evil was riding unchecked there.

Playing devil’s advocate, I could say no, it’s just classic psy-ops. After all, Machiavelli wrote, in 1513:

Men should be either treated generously or destroyed because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.

John Arbuthnot Fisher, around 1902, wrote:

The essence of war is violence. Moderation in war is imbecility.

Apologists for violence abound. Ian Hay wrote, in 1915:

War is hell and all that but it has a good deal to recommend it. It wipes out all the small nuisances of peacetime.

Yep, like providing a comfortable lifestyle for your family and yourself, not having your home broken into, family members tied back to back, burned and babies’ eyes gouged out. Real nuisances, those.

What’s to recommend war? Profit, of course plus one other rarely defined and obnoxious element present in its implementers.

The government in Sudan maintains that the villagers were rebels and therefore fair game. The average Brit would look at this and Mugabe’s atrocities and really wonder about the overkill. If you had to raze whole villages for psy-ops, then why not just shoot the villagers and be done? Scorch the earth, yes but why the fiendish little embellishments? From where do they spring?

Similarly, if you have to have land clearances to rid your land of the pesky Scot, then why not just clear the land, why indulge in atrocities?

George Kennan touched on it in his first memoirs [1967], writing that he was:

… never pleased that the policy he influenced was associated with the arms build-up of the Cold War. In his memoirs, Kennan argued that containment did not demand a militarized U.S. foreign policy. Instead, "counterforce" implied the political and economic defense of Western Europe against the disruptive effect of the war on European society. Exhausted by war, the Soviet Union was no serious military threat to the United States or its allies at the beginning of the Cold War but rather a strong ideological and political rival.

Militarization was no strategic necessity but there were those, from Oppenheimer to Dulles [a known advocate of ascendant man] to the hawks of today who allude to patriotism and make a great show of it in visits to the troops, dropping into the earthy rhetoric and simplistic political analysis which is light years from the truth, to achieve the real goal, the goal of Them.

We come down to the same old argument we always have – is it the evil in men’s hearts at work or is there an actual evil, utilizing the evil in men’s hearts? When man is left unchecked – see Golding’s Lord of the Flies – he descends to evil, not the other way round.

Ephesians 6:12 is a good start as to who Them is.

The worldwide legion of corrupt people are not bound in any conspiracy – they’re just the front few lines of people lost to the seven deadly sins but their bosses are something a bit worse.

‘Business is business’ is a wonderful cover for the world’s atrocities.

Girls from the Ukraine and other eastern European nations are prostituted for your delectation, kept in slavery and fear for their lives and that’s just business, isn’t it? Hey, many of them want the chance to get out, you might say. People with nothing will do anything.

I suggest that this is no more nor less than the bestialization of both the victim and the punter. Men and women, unbound by any code except ‘do as thou will’ and ‘business is business’, as indifferent to the plight of the pensioner and common man as any RBS, Northern Rock or Freddie and Fanny big wig, are acting in the interests of evil, whether wittingly or unwittingly.

Buchan [The Thirty-Nine Steps, 1915] touched on it but didn’t go far enough:

Everything would be in the melting-pot, and they looked to see a new world emerge. The capitalists would rake in the shekels, and make fortunes by buying up wreckage. Capital, he said, had no conscience and no fatherland. Take any big Teutonic business concern. If you have dealings with it, the first man you meet is Prince von und zu Something, an elegant young man who talks Eton-and-Harrow English. But he cuts no ice. If your business is big, you get behind him and find a prognathous Westphalian with a retreating brow and the manners of a hog. He is the German business man that gives your English papers the shakes. But if you're on the biggest kind of job and are bound to get to the real boss, ten to one you are brought up against a little white-faced Jew in a bath-chair with an eye like a rattlesnake.

I suggest that Buchan was wrong. When we get down to who the people behind the Morgans are, even behind the ‘rat faced men’, then we’re getting into a shaky area where many ideas abound.

Let me ask you a question.

During the rise and age of usury, enormous profits were made and then they just disappeared. Where to? Into the monarch’s coffers? Then why were the monarchs always near-impecunious? It doesn’t take that much research and almost no speculation to come up with the answer.

Let me change the topic completely.

How did the great houses get to be great in the first place, providing the ongoing leadership of Europe and the New World and the captains of industry? Who lent them the dosh in the first place and on what terms?

Leaving them aside and speaking completely hypothetically – if you wanted to be so filthy rich that you made Bill Gates look like a pauper, what would be the most lucrative areas? Surely land rentals, the war industry, prostitution, pornography [and by the way, which are the two most viewed categories of freely available internet porn?] drugs, oil, gas and the car industry, water and food monopolies and the hijacking of the green movement.

That’s whence it’s derived.

Now, if you’re a johnny-come-lately to these money spinners, how do you buy in? You don’t. The people with their hands on the wheel are not going to lightly relinquish that unless you come in with a lot of firepower, work for Them or pay your dues.

But how could you buy in, if you felt compelled to?

Well, you’d need a duplicitous, powerful person, used to funding both sides in a conflict, to provide you with sufficient resources to destabilize the powers that be. Why would he do this? Because he believes that only through constant conflict [Orwell’s 1984], by passing through the fire, will you achieve a higher consciousness. It’s the supremacy of the strong [Nietzsche, 1883]:

I teach you the superman. Man is something to be surpassed.

From the Tower of Babel until the present, this perverse philosophy has ruled in the corridors of power. Look at the currently disabled Particle Collider or go back to Oppenheimer’s 1945:

I am the destroyer of worlds.

Who is Them? It’s too dangerous to name, even for people like myself who couldn’t care less any more. But the manifestations of Them, the visible arms, can be spoken of, e.g. by Woodrow Wilson [The New Freedom, 1913]:

Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the U.S., in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.

Wilson again [1916]:

We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.

He should know. Lieutenants Warburg and House stood awfully close to the President throughout those dark years.

Churchill was referring specifically to communism and in reading his whole text, the following must be taken in context and yet the words are still powerful in a general sense [1920]:

From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, to those of Trotsky, Bela Kun, Rosa Luxembourg, and Emma Goldman, this world wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played a definitely recognizable role in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the nineteenth century, and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads, and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.

I suggest that the people behind all major movements are many and varied but they’re bound by a common boss whom many of them don’t even recognize.

My personal interest has been in the area of mind-control and this plays a role in the plot of my three books. It is amusing in a way that the existence of MK Ultra, now mainstream knowledge, was both denied by the CIA and seen as fantasy by the general populace when they did get to hear parts of it.

I’ve known of it for years, as you only need to do the most cursory research to come up with DID and SRA. Occasionally, the real roots of this hell on earth surface briefly and only the perceptive will see them before they sink back below the surface again. Do a bit of research on Michael Aquino, heavily involved in this business in a minor role for the U.S. military and look at his night time business – the Temple of Set.

Here are some descriptions of Them:

… organized, secretive, and extremely wealthy at its upper levels. They are not stupid … … These are NOT nice people and they use and manipulate others viciously. They cut their eye teeth on status, power, and money ... … these are the most cautionary people on earth. They try to leave absolutely NO tracks … … They have infiltrated our government, and the governments of every country in the world, and well as the judicial and legal systems, the media and our financial institutions. They are ruthless, ambitious, and will not stop at killing those they oppose ... … They are arrogant, and this could be their downfall. They view the common man as "sheep" with no intelligence. They are full of pride, believe they are invulnerable and that any press about them is the equivalent of a gnat to be swatted. Arrogant people make mistakes, and they are becoming more blatant and open in recent years ... … Stopping pornography and child prostitution and drug smuggling and gun running would take a huge chunk out of their profits …

Let’s throw in Jenner’s comment [Feb. 23, 1954]:

The important point to remember about this group is not its ideology but its organization. It is a dynamic, aggressive, elite corps, forcing its way through every opening, to make a breach for a collectivist one-party state. It operates secretly, silently, continuously to transform our Government without our suspecting the change is underway. This secret revolutionary corps understands well the power to influence the people by an elegant form of brainwashing.

That was 1954. Now look at the state of Brown’s Britain today. ’Nuff said.

How do they succeed? George Kennan wrote [George Urban, "From Containment to Self-Containment: A conversation with George Kennan," Encounter, September 1976, p17], that:

The source of the problem is the force of public opinion, a force that is inevitably unstable, unserious, subjective, emotional, and simplistic. As a result, the U.S. public [and we can include Britain in Kennan’s analysis] can only be united behind a foreign policy goal on the "primitive level of slogans and jingoistic ideological inspiration."

People just do not analyse or look for the ulterior motive, preferring simplistic explanations reinforced by the so-called rational sceptics. The average person, beset by his own worries, induced by Them in the first place, manipulates him something awful.

How many people think there’ll be a revolution and anarchy in the streets, where pollies, pakis and the MCB are all summarily executed? How many people would welcome Brown and company being tried and executed for what they’ve done to Britain?

‘Them’ want nothing better. Then they can remove the final freedoms and create the martial state, the whole idea all along. The martyrdom of Brown will have served its purpose.

People are sheep and always have been. Any time they’ve tried to raise the state of humankind, it’s been hijacked by agents of Them. Returning to Bond, the finale, where he stands over the fallen Mr. White is a lovely moment, showing they can’t have it all Their own way but in the final analysis, it is a temporary, Pyrrhic victory and where is the James Bond who’s going to serve your best interests anyway?

Coming back to Anon, he’ll be posting a series of articles at this blog which will be linked in the sidebar. I’d ask you to also have a look at the series of articles at Pro-Liberi, especially the one on civilization. I'll link when it's up.

This blog is in pursuit of truth. I’ve tried to answer the question of Them but have no monopoly on truth. The truth is discovered through looking at all points of view and that’s my motivation for recommending those series of articles.

[growing old gracefully] and the problem of seagulls

Look, I honestly do appreciate my residential location, which I’ve somehow accidentally or on purpose [depending on which deity you follow] found myself in.

I really am grateful … but what I do not appreciate is being woken every morning by the squawk of bleedin’ seabirds outside my window at 03:50.

I know that that was the time because I got up and had a look, didn’t I, before telling them to stop their bloody racket. All very yo-ho-ho in the morning light it was too, with birds screeching about over by the ships, very Robert Louis indeed as I gazed down on the street, hoping to catch a glimpse of a one legged man or to musket my way to a few of those pieces of eight.

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to write about today.

Yesterday, as you’d understand because I posted, I did the long bike trek into town, taking my two part spectacles into ASDA for repair. They refused, which is fine, so I had to go elsewhere but one thing which struck me was that ageing women shouldn’t try to dress as if they were still thirty. A mini-skirt and boots on a sixty-year old lady is not a pretty thing.

What is a pretty thing on a sixty year old lady is grace and elegance.

Who said a matriarch or that indefinable person called a ‘lady’ cannot be an alluring prospect if she is obviously some kind of Segie whom the years have treated kindly and who goes in for the Arthurian motif? Has anyone not heard of Queen Margot either - although I think she was a bit younger, wasn’t she?

Which brings me to the men.

In about 1995, I was asked by a girl hockey player of nineteen, with thighs like tree stumps [I have to get my own back somehow]: ‘Why do you try to dress like you’re nineteen?’

Rather than tell her to get knotted, I heeded the pastry-loving damsel’s words, took a look and yes, I’d basically grown older and forgotten to adjust the attire in accordance with the years.

Soon after, I passed my psychedelic yellow Sonnetti jacket and jeans on to a deserving teenager, discarded the designer trainers and went in for the loose top, straight cut jeans and black leather Echos on the feet. All I needed then was the body to go with it but that’s a later tale from Russia which you’ll never hear because I don’t want a certain person to know with whom I went.

So yes, a woman of sixty can look quite alluring if she:

1. is not a man-hating misandrist;
2. does not carp on and on and on about women’s rights and how wonderful Germaine Greer is;
3. looks after herself;
4. plays the part of the mysterious woman with a past.

What a man does, when the chin goes double, triple and finally becomes not unlike a pelican, is another matter. Maybe he should:

1. give away the pastries and sweet comestibles;
2. get back into the training;
3. fail to notice the younger ladies;
4. get involved in some noble pursuit which will bring the women in anyway;
5. have lots of money.

One thing he should not do is ride about on a bicycle at top speed, weaving in and out of cars parked at the lights as if it was a slalom course and then tear off down the road because as sure as a plaster cast, those worthy drivers will catch up with him further down the track and no amount of riding up on the footpath, playing chicken with stationary pedestrians and running lights will alter a car owner’s gleam of determination.

The moral is that people of a certain age should start to act their age. The two words ‘concrete boots’ leap apppealingly to the imagination for cheeky sods like the aforementioned.

Disclaimer: I didn’t really do any of the above – it was just fantasy, like the rest of my life.

Speaking of fantasy, there’s another aspect I’d like to touch on and that’s the ‘old farts – young tarts’ syndrome. With the best will in the world, chaps – that’s a fantasy unless you’re in a third world country and we all know about Gary Glitter, don’t we?

And by the way, have you seen some of the YTs today? What are they doing looking like that at that age? Is it their parents’ fault, their fault, society’s or Gordon Brown’s?

Having written all the above, I wonder if it isn’t easier for a woman in the early years and a man in the later years.

Perhaps not but it seems so.

Seems to me that a younger lady who wishes to enjoy the company of men no sooner need announce, ‘Here I am, boys,’ than she has an instantly loyal clientele. A man announcing, ‘Here I am, girls,’ might not attract quite the same degree of attention.

I saw one just now in the town and she was like a magnet for the middle-aged and yes, I would have.

Conversely, lovable, well dressed rogues who enjoy dancing might find felicity beyond fifty. In fact, I know a number of them. In Tenerife, I saw one Spaniard, maybe sixty-five, not all that tall, an expressive rather than a good dancer, cleanly dressed, with a very pleasant manner and women of all ages dripping off him. I looked at my girlfriend of the time and asked how he managed that. Later, he came over and we chatted about things – he really was one very cool dude without realizing why, I was sure of that.

So yes, perhaps we have to come to terms with where we are and not keep deluding ourselves. I shouldn’t imagine this will get too many comments as it’s a deeply personal issue for many and there’s a lot of either self-delusion or despondency about.

Solution? Perhaps an attitude and values makeover first, followed by a dose of reality – Britain’s good for that. Then a lifestyle change with a new game plan thought out.

[the cabbage] neo-feudal staple

As we slip into the neo-feudal, post-democratic, Richard Briars and Felicity Kendall society, it would be as well to reflect on the two staple foods you should have planted in your garden plot.

The cabbage [from Wiki]

Cabbage is an excellent source of Vitamin C. It also contains significant amounts of glutamine, an amino acid, which has anti-inflammatory properties.

It is a source of indole-3-carbinol, or I3C, a compound used as an adjuvent therapy for recurrent respiratory papillomatosis, a disease of the head and neck caused by human papillomavirus (usually types 6 and 11) that causes growths in the airway that can lead to death.

In European folk medicine, cabbage leaves are used to treat acute inflammation.[7] A paste of raw cabbage may be placed in a cabbage leaf and wrapped around the affected area to reduce discomfort. Some claim it is effective in relieving painfully engorged breasts in breastfeeding women.

Buckwheat [from Wiki]

Buckwheat contains rutin, a medicinal chemical that strengthens capillary walls, reducing hemorrhaging in people with high blood pressure and increasing microcirculation in people with chronic venous insufficiency.[23] Dried buckwheat leaves for tea were manufactured in Europe under the brand name "Fagorutin."

Buckwheat contains D-chiro-inositol, a component of the secondary messenger pathway for insulin signal transduction found to be deficient in Type II diabetes and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). It is being studied for use in treating Type II diabetes.[24] Research on D-chiro-inositol and PCOS has shown promising results.[25][26]

A buckwheat protein has been found to bind cholesterol tightly. It is being studied for reducing plasma cholesterol in people with an excess of this compound.

The Russians have sworn by these two for centuries and with good reason. Get yourself onto a diet where these are the framework and your digestive tract will leap up and thank you for it.

[the eu] and its interface with the great british workman

Sometimes the more mundane issues are the more interesting.

Last Thursday, I heard a knock on the door and there was The Great British Workman, named Chris, to be known for simplicity’s sake as The Great British Workman, wearing a sickly yellow green jacket.

‘We’re ah, going to do the lekky, like.’

All right, there were a number of assumptions here. Firstly, what the hell was he talking about? Secondly, what ‘lekky’ needed to be done? I was happy, I had my pay meter, the shop was not far away to do the top ups, the sun was shining.

‘We’re moving your meter, like.’

‘Ah, and where, Chris, are you moving it to, pray?’

‘Downstairs.’

‘Why would you move my personal paymeter, which currently houses my electronic key, which I had to negotiate with the electririty company over a period of twenty five ‘press one if you need to be confused’ days, to some remote part of this mansion, accessible only by three flights of stairs and five intervening doors, when the whole point of a personal paymeter is to know instantly and at hand, how much electricity you have, to take the aforementioned key, go to the shop with it and say, ‘Ten quid on the lekky, please?’’

‘Health and Safety.’

‘Yes and I fervently believe it’s a great idea, health and safety but how does this come into the discussion about my paymeter?’

‘Well, it’s unsafe like.’

‘Who says?’

‘Health and Safety.’

‘Right, let me get this straight. Last week, you’d concede, my personal paymeter was perfectly safe, no sparks or conflagration of any kind? Good. Today though, it’s become unsafe, a liability lurking in a box, ready to spring out and incinerate my children and hopefully my missus?’

‘The EU like. New regulations come through.’

‘Now I understand. Right Chris, when do you want to do this?’

‘Tomorrow – wil you be in all day?’ he innocently asked, expecting everyone to phone up work at a moment’s notice and say, ‘Think I won’t drop in today; I’m having my paymeter removed.’’

‘I’ll be in.’

.o0o.

TGBW arrived only thirty minutes after the designated time [and I appreciated that I’d been given an actual time in the first place], with stepladders, tools, a sheet and a mate, wearing a sickly yellow green jacket.

Soon they were up in the loft, there was a lot of yelling at someone called Tel, elsewhere in the loft and then a great thick black cable was passed through, maybe an inch thick, snaking its way into my bathroom.

‘This is moving the meter, is it?’

‘We have to change the cable.’

‘What, for the whole building?’

‘Yeah, the old cable doesn’t meet specifications.’

‘This is a new flat, that was new cable you put through a month back’

‘Well yeah but it doesn’t meet specifications now. The EU like.’

‘At this point, I ran into the owner of the complex, an exceedingly nice chap named Frazzled to a Cinder, hereafter to be known as FTAC, not wearing a sickly yellow green jacket. You can always tell the owner of a venture in this land - where things are actually built, rather than a few figures being creatively moved about on a page as he applies to be bailed out – he’s the one with the worry lines on his brow and the glazed eyes at age thirty-two and he doesn’t wear a sickly yellow green jacket unless he has to.

‘FTAC, what’s all this about? I don’t want my fucking meter moved downstairs, excuse my French. I was perfectly happy in this nice little complex with its gardens, fountains, triple glazed gas filled, acoustic glass, CCTV, bicycle sheds, carpark, domaphone and piped music.’

‘James,’ he said, in that exasperated voice, ‘tell me about it. This is costing me a thousand fucking pounds to change the fucking cable over. The thing’s cost twenty three thou so far. Scottish Power. We’ll try to get them to keep the disruption to a minimum.’

‘And I thought I had problems. Thanks, FTAC.’

.o0o.

Three and a half hours later, with me still stuck in the flat, TGBW reappeared. ‘Ah, look mate, they say they’ll be in to do it Monday morning now. Problem with the new meters like.’

‘Oh thanks a whole lot for that, GBW, I appreciate being cooped up here all day. What time Monday?’

‘Well, we can’t tell, can we? I’ll be here eight o’clock though. Will you be in Monday like?’

‘For you, Chris, anything.’

.o0o.

The trip to my mate was also stymied due to certain internal issues at that end so a pleasant weekend was had writing and editing the book.

.o0o.

Monday morning duly arrived and no one appeared, as I’d suspected.

About ten, TGBW appeared and said, ‘Right, we’re shutting off the power in an hour. Will you be in, like?’’

‘How long for?’

‘An hour.’

‘No, how long will the power be off for?’

‘An hour. We’ll finish the cable now.’

Thirty minutes later, there was a knock at the door. There was TGBW, Tel, a stepladder and the ubiquitous sickly yellow green jackets. I knew he was my mate because he said, ‘Awright, mate?’

They now went into a four hour session of cursing, swearing to themselves and whatever in the loft, every so often resulting in cable coming through to the flat, dust and debris going over the carpet and walls.

‘You got a vacuum?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Right, brush and pan ’ll do.’

The other one was at my box, incising cable, drilling, screwing, unscrewing and generally enjoying himself. I felt ravaged.

Then the drilling in the walls and roof began.

A couple of hours later, I caught TGBW and asked when the ‘lekky’ was going off.

‘Tomorrah now. They didn’t get the right meters.’

I wondered if he’d meant to say Gomorrah rather than tomorrah. ‘Tell me, Chris, are you expecting me to be in tomorrow?’

‘Yeah, if ya can like. We need ta get in the flats.’

‘That’s very kind of you. For how many more days will this happen?’

‘Only tomorrah.’

At this point, some very official people with clipboards appeared – I knew they were official because they had clipboards and weren’t wearing wearing sickly yellow green jackets - and I made the mistake of asking, ‘Is it absolutely necessary that the personal paymeter go downstairs?’

‘No, not at all.’

‘You’re electricity, right?’

‘British Gas and Electric.’

‘Not Southern Electric?’

‘No. Ah, you’re not one of ours then. What, are you, Npower?’

I went and found a Scottish Power man downstairs – he was the one looking on approvingly and not much else but his jacket was orange, which provided pleasant relief, like – and I asked him the same question.

‘No, not at all.’

Good, my severed cables and debris notwithstanding, my interruptions and inconvenience were soon to be ended. Now, quite a number of hours after the threatened shut down of electricity, I sought out TGBW.

‘Well, we’re not shutting it off until tomorrow morning now.’

.o0o.

Tuesday morning.

About ten, TGBW appeared and went through the ‘we’re shutting the lekky off in an hour’ spiel.

An hour later, it was shut off but everything had been done – washing, ironing etc.

Two hours later, I went for a wander in the strangely silent building and found an interesting sight downstairs. Leaning on his van, with a bemused smile on his face, was FTAC.

‘Morning, James.’

He wandered over and we found an alcove. To my questioning glance, he explained, ‘These people standing about are the first gang, for the cable. There’s another lot meant to be here but they were sent to another site instead and we’re waiting for a third gang to arrive. This lot are costing me by the hour.’

‘They’ve cut off the power.’

‘Maybe you’ll have better luck than me. We’ve got flats to build.’

‘I wondered why it was so quiet.’

‘Look, that’s him over there. Go and have a chat.’

I did. It was a rotund, red-faced little man with Scottish Power tattooed on his forehead and wearing an orange jacket. ‘Excuse my presumption but is it necessary to have the power off while no one’s doing anything?’

‘Don’t blame me mate – it’s them wot didn’t turn up.’

‘Yes but while everyone’s hanging about chatting and having cuppas, could be have a smidgeon of lekky perhaps?’

‘Nah. Regulations. Health and Safety. Sorry.’

FTAC was grinning, fit to burst. I went upstairs, crestfallen.

One hour.

Two hours.

Three hours.

I went downstairs to find out and TGBW explained to me, ‘Yeah, the meters came but they were the wrong ones. We’re waiting for the new meters.’

‘Chris, forgive me for being stupid but I thought you were actually getting my meter out and putting downstairs behind an old washbasin?’

‘Oh no, we can’t touch them. They belong to the company.’

‘You mean I have to phone my electricity supplier, with whom it took weeks just to get an identity code, to come out and shift my personal paymeter downstairs here, coordinating with Scottish Power?’

‘Yeah, it might be worth calling ’em like.’

I went upstairs, intending to do no such thing.

Half and hour later, there was a knock on the door. It was TGBW. ‘I’ve come to take out your meter.’

I ushered him in and watched the start of the complex process of about a dozen little sub-boxes needing removing, new cable attached and so on. There was still a little bit of battery power on the Mac so I went back to that.

Late afternoon now, I went looking for them all and found TGBW, a success in itself. He explained, ‘They need these lugs,’ he drew a diagram on the wall with his finger, ‘and they didn’t bring ’em. You’d think seein’ as we’d put new cable in, we’d need lugs too.’

‘Hold on – do you need the lugs or do they?’

‘Them. We put ’em in but they have to supervise it, like.’

‘Why?’

‘Regulations.’

‘Health and Safety?’

‘Yeah.’

Just before my regular meeting with my mate of a Tuesday evening, TGBW appeared at the door and knocked. ‘Your juice is back on.’ He then moved to the next flat.

In the car, my mate chuckled, ‘There might be a blog post in that, you know.’

This morning I told FTAC I was running a post on this and he grinned. He’s heard of blogs, of course but being involved in building things, he doesn’t have a lot of time.

If you want to meet him, he’s the one with the polished accent, his sentences punctuated by he word ‘fucking’, looking like a navvy and driving the van.

[ice cream farms] and the entrepeneur

If the Iceland entrepeneurs can create an ice-cream farm:

On why they decided to produce ice cream on their farm, Egilsdóttir said, “I guess we’re just a little weird.” It only took her and her husband three days to execute their idea. “If we get an idea and it makes sense, it is best to execute it immediately,” added Gudmundsson.

... then why can't we set up something like that? Maybe we already have.

[dearie me] can't see my glasses in front of my face

I tell you, it's not funny.

The other day, I was in the kitchen, my 'computer glasses' fell, I tried to stop them hitting the floor and stuck out a knee and the lenses fell out. Following this, it was a case of finding the little screw [metal] all over the kitchen every time it pinged out of the hole.

Anyway, I got the little bugger [metal] in eventually.

Well knock me down with a glass case if yesterday they didn't fall off again - in two pieces. They snapped in half.

Now I'm wondering who's got something against me writing the book and blogging 'cause I can't do either properly without 'em. Maybe they just don't like my specs.

[quick grabs] the hearts and minds follow

JPT:

I saw a Policeman walking near to where I live today and I thought 'what's he up to then?'

Nornorwester:

Which of the alternative versions of the following proverbs is true:

A) A woman's work is never done.

B) A woman's hair is never done.

A) A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single shoe shop.

B) A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single stag party.

A) If wishes were horses I’d have a palomino.

B) If wishes were horses then Gypsy Princess would have definitely won the 2.45 at Chepstow.

Bob G:

March is here

Another month shot in the ass.

Vox:

I will confess to not understanding how having read War and Peace or Madame Bovary is supposed to make one any more sexy, but otherwise, this common practice of deceit doesn't surprise me at all.

Deogolwulf, on the fallacy of chronological snobbery:

The progressive-historicism of the fallacy often betrays itself in such epithets as “medieval logic”, spoken as though an instance of logical inference could somehow be invalidated and therefore ignored merely through association with a pre-modern source.