Sunday, October 04, 2015

The cold, dark heart of the British public

Matthew Parris writes:
What Jeremy Corbyn, like David Cameron, understands about the cold, dark heart of the British public - leave compassion to journalists and Lib Dems. Voters want a dash of acid.
Oh yes, I can relate to that and so, it seems, can the "cold-hearted" British public:
I think Mr Parris is on to something. When the little boy refugee was found drowned on a beach in Greece, the media tugged hearstrings for the plight of all refugees. But I found a much colder attitude amonst people I knew. There was universal sadness that such a small child should suffer such a tragic fate, but that sadness did not translate to a willingness to be open armed to every refugee. Rather, the sadness was offset by questions about why the family left a safe location in Turkey, the responsibility of that family, and the responsibilitry of the people smugglers. I do not think this is new - the British have always been a less emotional, more pragmatic, more realistic, people than, say, some continentals. Whether Jeremy Corbyn, champion of the underdog, will connect to this realism is another matter - I doubt it.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

EU - it's the lies more than the issue itself

Heseltine, he was one of those 40 years ago who lied to the British public.

The lie at that time was that we were only joining the EEC as a trade organization.  As the other major European nations were going to be doing this, The UK felt it should get in and become part of and maybe even defend or dominate - whatever.

That's how it was presented to the public and a referendum was put in which people affirmed they wanted to be part of that.

Maastricht and sundry other events such as Lisbon showed clearly though there had been no intention ever at leaving it at that.  The Club of Rome was behind the whole push and that contained many of the worst elements of the German old family elite, the same ones who had enabled Hitler.

The Germans' purpose became clear - to dominate Europe and assist in the dismantling of the UK, in particular dismantling England as a unit and turning it into 9 regions of the EU, along with Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

When people are not allowed to run their own lives - a cautionary tale



Health warning: this post defends Christianity in places but contains no nuts, gluten or proselytizing. If allergic, just move on to the next post.

 ...........

 Haiku sent a Smithsonian story on the discovery, in the wilds of Russia, of the Lykov family.

  Summary

 The family had been isolated behind snow walls and so on in Siberia for hundreds of years until "discovered" by a team of geologists:
Thus it was in the remote south of the forest in the summer of 1978. A helicopter sent to find a safe spot to land a party of geologists was skimming the treeline a hundred or so miles from the Mongolian border when it dropped into the thickly wooded valley of an unnamed tributary of the Abakan, a seething ribbon of water rushing through dangerous terrain.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

About this site


By "this site" is meant two sites which form a continuum:

1.  The original blog which ran from 2006 to 2009;
2.  The current blog which has run from 2009 until now.

Both are active - the original blog still gets quite a deal of traffic but posts are generally on the current one.

It began as a political outlet concerned with a third force in politics - the oligarchical "them", which in 2006 most people hadn't researched and didn't fully understand the extent of.  Quickly the blog became a sort of magazine because there were just too many other interesting things to write about as well in many fields, from technology to cuisine.

The name came from an article on China, written in 2006, which refers to Deng Ziaoping:
According to Deng Xiaoping, in order to eventually overcome, China should adopt the ancient maxim of "hiding brightness and nourishing obscurity," and Beijing adds: "to bide our time and build up our capabilities" and again: "to yield on small issues with the long term in mind."

Sunday, December 18, 2011

What sort of mind does these things?



AK Haart wrote, on the topic of electric cars:
We run into difficulties when people say things of such mind-boggling stupidity that we almost wonder at their sanity. Why does he/she say such things? It's nonsense.  I’m not speaking of specific slogans here, but conceptual frameworks which may just about make sense internally, but which are obviously in wild conflict with other, more rational frameworks. Examples are not difficult to find.
Let's open with this one from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, via This is True, via email:

Monday, September 28, 2009

[think big] but don't hold your breath


A man who doesn't do things by halves:

Dalton Chiscolm is unhappy about Bank of America's customer service - really, really unhappy. Chiscolm in August sued the largest US bank and its board, demanding that "1,784 billion, trillion dollars" be deposited into his account the next day. He also demanded an additional $US200,164,000, court papers show.

Attempts to reach Chiscolm were unsuccessful. A Bank of America spokesman declined to comment.

"Incomprehensible," US District Judge Denny Chin said in a brief order released in Manhattan federal court. "He seems to be complaining that he placed a series of calls to the bank in New York and received inconsistent information from a 'Spanish woman,'" the judge wrote. "He apparently alleges that checks have been rejected because of incomplete routing numbers."

Would you be able to write that amount in numeral form?

[late evening listening] dearieme presents tiny and truck parham