[blogging] and a sense of perspective

Angus Dei, a pending member at Bloghounds, has done the statutory blogger thing and looked inwards at why he blogs. The message is remarkably consistent with what other bloggers have also felt:

Blogging enables people to communicate, it enables discussion, and a chance to join together against the things that really irritate us, or things that are wrong. I know why I blog, I do it to keep sane, I do it because I want to get a message out to people and perhaps just maybe make a tiny difference to this tortured world and all the tortured souls in it.

Good and that's the spirit within which most people blog and so we fisk away and blithely post. As it's usually Gordo or the NHS on the receiving end, who are in no position to fight back, everything is hunky-dory. Where it starts to falter is when the wrong 'un is apparently another blogger - then the thing gets murky and the right to freedom of expression is suddenly withdrawn by the accused. Suddenly suppression and threats are on the agenda.

I take the point of view that if you're willing to dish it out and willing to justify it with supporting evidence, then you have to be willing to cop it in return. You'll be posted on in none too flattering [and in your view - unjustified] terms. Ho hum. The principle of the blogosphere has always been freedom of expression and as most of us have relatively small readerships, it's pretty pointless worrying ourselves too much over it, once the hue and cry is done. Voltaire once reportedly referred to it this way:

What a fuss over an omelette.

In the end, a bit of common sense and a thick hide are the required attributes of a good political blogger. We do find ourselves spammed and trolled at times though; unpleasant types also wish to hijack our comments sections.

Comment moderation is a pretty effective deterrent there, when used sparingly. I don't particularly like to use it, as it depersonalizes the whole blogging experience but sometimes it's necessary - there are some crazy people out there in the sphere.

So yes, blogging's largely a rewarding thing but keep an eye peeled over one shoulder, all the same.

UPDATE WEDNESDAY MORNING: I continue the theme in the comments section. Ordo has also posted on a blogger whom some Welsh MPs have tried to silence.

[in defence of romance] new era dawneth

It need not be retro, it need not even be nostalgic, it can even incorporate the new technology, as in this blog post but one thing I know we need in this world now is a new era of romance.

In the coming era of adversity, in the black goth ascendancy and current atmosphere of disillusionment, in the current loss of all human dignity and sense of hopelessness, there are two things missing this time round - the creativity such as blossomed during the jazz age and the return of elegance.





We need the fashions of yesteryear to be borne in mind and a new fashion for the times created, a new rush of possibilities, a new code of social relations, loosely based on chivalry and respect.

We need men to be men, rather than frightened, emasculated disrespecters of women and for women to be women, not the carping "I can do anything better than you" sisterhood but people a man can respect and adore. I see fewer and fewer of each today.


We need a cranking down of our lifestyle to one of more simplicity and sheer enjoyment, embracing the new technology and going forward, rather than some luddite stopping of all progress. Let's redirect the current direction rather than stop it in its tracks.

We need a new family deal, where parents do the things parents should do without blaming society and for schools to expunge themselves of entrenched revisionists who have led the children astray, away from their roots and from the core values of a sane society.


Above all, we need hope and confidence. Hope that we will always defeat this new negativity and confidence that we will prevail under the assault of destitution and social engineering. We need to wrest our nation back from those who have hijacked it. As Winston said:

You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory - victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival."

[the boss] lonely life at the top

I've had two main brushes with being isolated and lonely - one involving me and one involving being at close quarters with another who was there. As well as that, my little consulting practice brought me into contact with CEOs and they all had the same outlook, the same melancholic quietness, punctuated by irritation and annoyance.

This piece on Barack Obama was quite interesting in that context. A thousand levels above anything I ever experienced, nevertheless it meant something to me personally.

CEOs used to come to visit, always with a cheery greeting but over coffee they'd unwind to the point that they could reveal how wound up they were. The sessions with me were a sort of relief from the hurly burly and yet they couldn't relax, didn't want to sacrifice any advantage. All steps had to be forward and upward.

One chap said that his friend had just died the day before at 57. He'd been a workaholic, couldn't delegate, had had a lovely wife and family he rarely saw without business issues intruding and he'd then stressed himself out so far that he'd shuffled off. My own client wasn't that far off this either, I surmised at the time.

It's lonely for a CEO and it's a slightly different thing for a man and a woman. The women I've known in those positions have been just as driven but lived in golden cages, in goldfish bowls. They had no life to speak of and couldn't have. Known in the town, the chances of a man wanting her just for herself was mighty small and so the defences were permanently up.

Meetings with friends for a drink were timed and then concluded. Novels were glanced at last thing before bed. There was never real respite. In the Min's case, he came in about 10 or 11 a.m. but was pretty constantly on the go, chairing meetings, entertaining dignitaries, visiting the free economic zone, travelling, travelling, called to audiences with the PM until 8 or 9 p.m. Then he'd go through his dispatch boxes at home.

Looked glamorous and every one of these people didn't shy away from the position when it was offered. It had many perks which I prefer to call "things which make the job possible to do". Yet all of these people were under stress the whole time because even one false decision was going to cost deeply. I have no time for people who envy what they see as the cushy life of such CEOs - it's a lonely game up there and it is very hard work.

In my own case, in our organization, I had two roles and they had me on call from about 6 a.m. until about 11 p.m. It wasn't that which burnt me out in the end but the constant issues needing resolution which never, ever let up, even on weekends. Yes, the money was good and I could run two cars but the stress outweighed that significantly. I think I got out in time.

So yes, I can oppose Obama, politically, from this blog, as the best choice for America but one can only respect the job he's taken on.

[supertanker] the stakes are getting higher

At first I thought, "How the ... ?" when the story broke of the Saudi supertanker hijacked by Somali pirates. There seemed anomalies:

1. How could such a huge boat go down to a few speedboats, even with rocket launchers;
2. Where were the protective warships we read about;
3. Why wasn't the tanker accosted by gunships as it was being taken back to the Somali pirate's haven?

This is not the particular tanker above but you'll get the idea that it wouldn't be too difficult to scale - it's low to the water; it was 450 km south of the protective ring of warships.

However, the answer still doesn't seem to have come through as to why no one is doing anything. The U.S. could accost it, Saudi has the money to back an interception. So why not?

Perhaps the answer is that if there were any rescue attempt, the cargo would be sunk and whilst the pirates lose millions in this particular deal, it is better for Saudi Arabia and the company to pay out a few million in ransom and save the 995 million left over.

If that's the reason, then this thing is going to continue, isn't it? It's highly lucrative for the pirates and each new hit finances the next phase, with better and better weapons and better tactical moves. They're probably counting on the international oil trade not to get their act together and to agree to combine and fork out for protection either.

[ripping yarns] the making of

Have you a spare ten minutes?



Well ... twenty minutes?



Forty minutes?

Part 3

Part 4

Reviews here and here.
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[conspiracy theory] or blinkered philistinism

The lack of logic in the ignorant's war cry "conspiracy theory" is that it presupposes that nobody colludes.

If nobody colluded, Mr. Ig, then there'd be no oligarchies, no anti-trust laws, no anti-price fixing actions. The tendency of bookshops to run a section called "conspiracy theory", next door to the fiction section, is another ignorant move in the same vein.

Of course there's collusion and why wouldn't there be?

People who never think things through are wont to trot out this catchcry in lieu of using the grey matter and as for the blinkered, well, Michael Palin dealt with them in his Ripping Yarn of the young lad who asked where India was, only to be told by his father that it did not exist; he then argued and was admonished by his mother that: "Your father has spoken, dear."

People with an agenda, e.g. businessmen who want a global climate condusive to their sort of business are going to collude, aren't they? They're going to sit down at Round Table meetings, Bilderberg meetings and other meetings and map out strategies. Are you seriously saying they would never do that, would never have conferences with like minded people in their field?

Turning your attention to governments, can you name a western government which does not play to its richest investors and provide fast track and kickbacks? Come on. Who is the realist here - the ostrich or the person who accepts that such doings do go on? And if they do go on, then they don't go on in a namby-pamby way but full-on.

So, to maintain that some vast global conspiracy is a fiction is to fly in the face of facts. CFR, TLC, Club of Paris - they all exist and all support the global financial agenda, as does the UN and as does the EU. And yes, there is ample evidence out there. The governmental end of the spectrum deals with the social engineering aspect of it.

However, just because they support this does not necessarily mean they'll get what they want in all respects.

They make errors, other factors like the U.S. involvement in the No vote in Ireland have an effect on the result; the employment of sub-par robotic, demi-intelligent, ambitious people in key Common Purpose roles [and who else would pay vast sums of money to become a Leader when the crash comes anyway?] - that kicks in; sheer human turpitude among the masses stymies the best laid plans - there are so many factors bu--ering up the elite vision of a "utopian" future.

Is there anything sinister or satanic about any of this? Look at wartime Germany, Salon Kitty, the the sexual dissolution at the top levels, the rest of that black scene - hardly healthy, wouldn't you agree? Do you really believe that doesn't exist in the Germany of today? Where did the escaped nazis end up? What, all of them? Where did their progeny go? Are the forces which saw the rise of this horror not present in Bavaria and Austria today?

Turn this thing back on itself.

If you were an evil entity, where would you be more likely to turn your attention - helping the Old Families make obscene amounts of money in a crisis or helping out the poor with philanthropic donations? The answer is: "Both."

The greatest problem humanity has is that it can't open its mind wide enough to encompass what is only logical, after all. So it is left to the Alex Joneses and Fritz Springmeiers of the world to come out with their disreputable take on elements of truth which they discover upon scratching round.

To their credit, at least they are scratching around, looking.

An example was the recent story of the youth who was accosted by the PCSOs and that came to the notice of Alex Jones. Jones's boorish interruptions all the way through, to push his own take on the British stasi, had the effect on the listener [and who sits, looking at Jones's face during his diatribes?] of saying: "Please!"

What he had to say could well have been true and I have no doubt that Gordo is utilizing these people as a stasi-in-waiting but no one's going to accept that when it comes through Alex Jones's sensationalism. You know, it's almost as though ... well, how can I put this?

Look ... if I was employing a stasi like that and I needed to cover my tracks, then I'd certainly leak it to Jones and let David Icke get a soundbite as well.

Once the auto-deniers had done me over, no one would believe a word of it, except the dispossessed and those on my payroll anyway and so I'd be as safe as houses until the revolution which would never come except as a spectacle for the news cameras because I would have the "leaders of the revolution", the Trotskies and Lenins, well paid and in position, ready for the day.

This is the central problem. The people with the good oil, those who discover dire goings on, are so loopy in the way they disseminate it that the original message is lost.

That's why you have to proceed with caution. That's why you only build on your last piece of solid evidence, such as a man's own words. When you have to connect the dots, you have to do it in a way consistent with your evidence. When you say someone is a dangerously criminal fruitcake, you need to have something to back that up.

There is so much disinformation and so many auto-scorners in key positions in the press and blogosphere that you can afford the errors in secrecy to fall into the hands of the Jones's, to be mashed up in their wild assertions.

Nothing is that simplistic in real life; ambitious people, even do-gooders, for whom the end result turns out to be something evil, anti-human, actually believe that they are the "good people" all along and are genuinely shocked when someone calls them out for it; things never go according to plan completely and then ... well, incompetent ignorance, particularly in the PC zombies, is endemic.

Meanwhile the rest of us suffer and almost no one blames the correct causes of it until it is upon them.
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