[odd one out] all entertainers

Firstly - identify them.

Secondly - who is the odd one out and why? [There could be any reason - female, black, French or whatever but this is an unusual reason.]

Their names, clockwise from the top:

Eva Green, Elvis Presley, Vin Diesel, Michael Jackson

The odd one out?

Michael Jackson - the only one without a twin.

[ve day] victory in europe

Which date was VE Day?

The final document of unconditional surrender was signed at General Dwight Eisenhower's headquarters in Reims on 7 May. Prime Minister Winston Churchill and King George VI wanted Monday 7 May to be VE Day, but in the event, bowing to American wishes, victory was celebrated on 8 May. The USSR waited an extra day before beginning their formal celebrations. New Zealand also celebrated on May 9th.

In Russia, the Day of Victory is tomorrow and in Victory Park in this town a crowd will gather early tomorrow morning for the service and parade.

As you'd know, this is also Israel's 60th on the 14th and tomorrow, May 9th, is Verlin Martin's birthday - congrats to him too. The first sales of Coca Cola were at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886.

Speaking personally, the second worst case scenario was laid out for me today. If I do have to leave in late May, the invitation to return can't be made until mid July. This means that my summer work where I recoup most of my cash disappears and I lose the clients I've built up. I also won't qualify for the summer holiday pay from the university.

With assets inaccessible in my homeland [won't go into that], I would then need to stay outside Russia [where?] for a month and a half on tea money whilst my flat here requires it's monthly payments. Wonderfully black joke. I'll find some country to visit and live on the beach I suppose.

Also troubling was looking for evidence that Britain plans any celebrations for VE Day and came up with this. However I did find a 2007 reference to Gordon Brown suggesting the new Britain Day where he could "reclaim the flag from the right".

Anyone or anything I've missed on this day?

[caption time] everything's just fine

[lizard queen] damaged but still dangerous

Everyone and his dog is commenting on this so why should I be any different?

It's over for her. Here are the reasons: There really is no mathematical chance for her to win; her campaign is virtually out of money - and it will be difficult for her to raise significant amounts of money after last night; not enough happened last night to give her any hope, so continuing would only give the appearance of wanting to damage Mr Obama.

... and yet ... and yet:

She is a Clinton and the Clintons do not have the word "lose" in their playbook. A down and out Komodo is a dangerous creature. All sorts of deals are going to be struck now and there is still the pro-woman factor and the anti-black, right through till the end.

Today I read this:

So far she has received endorsements from 271 superdelegates, to Mr Obama's 256, with 270 still undecided, according to the Associated Press.

Many super-delegates say they will vote for the candidate chosen in the primary of their home state.

This looks like a good analysis, written before the latest primaries but predicting them well.

Can anyone tell me what sort of tally that works out to overall?

[id cards] gordon's subterfuge

Not happening, you believe? More here.

I try but can see no flaw in his reasoning.

[eco-misery] the search for a sustainable solution

You silly moo

[Chesterton, in the] 1910 What's Wrong with the World ... advocated a view called "Distributism" that is best summed up by his expression that every man ought to be allowed to own "three acres and a cow."

The economic pillar of this distributist idea entailed:

Private property

Under such a system, most people would be able to earn a living without having to rely on the use of the property of others to do so. Examples of people earning a living in this way would be farmers who own their own land and related machinery ... [and] the "co-operative" approach ... recognise[ing] that such property and equipment may be "co-owned" by local communities larger than a family, e.g. partners in a business.

Guild system

The kind of economic order envisioned by the early distributist thinkers would involve the return to some sort of guild system. The ... existence of labor unions promotes class interests, whereas Guilds are employers and employees cooperating for mutual benefit.

Banks

Distributism ... eliminates ... the current private bank system, or in any case, its profit-making basis. This does not necessarily entail nationalization.

The fine detail, unfortunately, still involves government or social coercion in a plethora of legislation but at least it appreciates the great social dilemma - given the ideal that a free market needs to be also a fair market, that private property should be recognized for all members of society and that the system favours people of enterprise, nevertheless the system will always tends towards monopolization and cartels.



Would you not agree that a healthy society is one in which a man and/or woman can labour to produce direct betterment of their condition, in a climate where this is not swamped by prices driven up by price fixing?

Eliminate the banks and the cost of a house would sooner or later become "affordable" for the average family and would require no borrowing. It is the borrowing which is the problem. To borrow to improve your condition is one thing - it involves usury - and yet to legislate against usury is again state coercion.

At base level though, with no borrowing whatsoever, the cost of a basic house should still be affordable on the mean wage and this needs to be somehow enshrined in society.

So it's a pretty problem.

It also fails to take into account two other things - the mushrooming population, with its consequent strain on natural resources plus greed and evil in high places [Ephesians 6:12].

I keep quoting that verse and argue that it very much must be taken into consideration in developing any sustainable economic theory and yet most economists, by nature, would reject the notion. Therein lies the potential failure of any social order - from capitalism to communism - if you won't accept the existence of some sort of malicious cynicism up top.

The system must, therefore, necessarily fail because it does not recognize "malice" as a factor, as a motive. Not just "incompetence", not just "selfishness", not just "greed" but actual malice in high places.

Well all right, let's call it instead "deep cynicism".

It knows that certain policies such as sub-prime lending and the inevitable effect of credit availability for the masses, leading to skyrocketing costs, must inevitably also lead to crunches, crashes and war, which devastate the masses and in fact criminalizes the ordinary citizen. However, for a certain class - it turns an obscene profit.

It's this profiting from human misery, under the banner "business is business", which is the most troublesome in my mind, a mind which, in principle, embraces the Coolidge maxim that the business of the state is business.

Small government, therefore, needs to run four things:

1. defence; 2. social security for the truly needy; 3. facilitation of enterprise within its borders; 4. anti-cartel, anti-monopoly legislation and anti-price fixing.

But who will do Point 4? The people who rise to the top of government, by definition, meet the old money and are seduced by the elite ideals. I was on my way to this at one time in the distant past. Which is worse - state slavery or business cartel slavery?

Choose your flavour.

How can we devise a system which will actually work and yet does not involve government in any but those four areas?

The problem or the solution?