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Page 35The ramblings of an old gitbloggoth Mission Statement: |
The Clothes Mothman Prophesies
A while back we showed how animals might evolve to make use of man's activities. But surely that has happened already. Where did Bedbugs lurk before there were any beds? What did Carpet Beetles eat before we started making carpets? Where did the grubs of Clothes Moths live before we started wearing clothes? That last raised a rather sinister idea. We at bloggoth watched Richard Gere in The Mothman Prophecies the other night. It involves strange sightings of a huge mothlike apparition that imparts details of future tragedies to those who encounter it. The Mothman is not an invention of the film's scriptwriters, the film was based on supposed sightings that occured in the US about 35 years earlier and the film suggested there have been similar stories throughout the world.
Think about it. Early man didn't wear clothes but then Clothes Moths evolved and had nowhere to lay their eggs. Then mankind got all prudish and started wearing clothes. Interestingly, according to this Bible origins site, an ancient Hebrew version of a text that is thought to be the earliest known version of the Book of Genesis refers to Eve's tempter with the word Ehgwadeem which translates as night fly rather than the similar word Emmahdeen for serpent. Is it possible that Mothman could actually be due to psychic energy from .... moths? Could it be that these ubiquitous little creatures, far from being harmless little night flyers, are actually controlling mankind and causing all the religious taboos about sex just so they have somewhere to lay their eggs? The theory is extremely convincing you have to agree.
Topic: Mothman Prophecies Comment here. Comments so far: 0
What a loony way of putting it
According to this article there is a wave of intolerance and racism against Gypsies and Irish Travellers who face the prospect of being pushed off plots of land they own. If they were being turned off their own land where they have legal rights to reside that would indeed be appalling but the same article states:
Eric Pickles, the communities and local government minister, is drafting new laws to allow police more powers to evict and arrest people for trespass on public land. Planning laws are also being changed to stop applications for retrospective permission to put caravans on private land.
Pickles has already announced the reversal of previous efforts to provide "pitches" within all local authorities, abolishing the regional planning bodies which were to oversee provision of registered sites for travellers and ease the tensions caused by Gypsies being forced to camp illegally.
So the reality is that they are only being required to conform to the same laws as the rest of us and are not to be allocated a blanket funding that others do not get, even those who have actually contributed through their council tax. What exactly is to stop travellers' groups doing what anyone else would have to do if they wanted to buy a plot of land as a camp site? Why can't they go through the normal checks and procedures and pay for it themselves? If individuals cannot afford the site rent why can they not apply for benefits on the same basis as anyone else?
By what bizarre inverted logic can treating a group the same as others and expecting them to conform to the same laws as others be defined as discrimination or racism? We have said before that nothing raises predudice more than a perception that a group are getting favourable treatment at our expense. If we stop reading stories of travellers occupying other people's land or flouting planning rules, if we stop finding car parks and other areas we pay for out of our council tax occupied by caravans, the public perception is likely to change for the better.
As the article also mentions at the end there was another reason why gypsies were once treated more favourably. They were an invaluable source of temporary labour and still could be were it not for the way that seasonal fruit picking and similar short term jobs have been handed to floods of migrants. With their promotion of the victim mentality and their support for massive immigration it is the Liberal left who have done more than anyone else to turn travellers into outcasts.
Unbelievable but in a great way this time
These paintings are by a 7 year old
Unbelievable
Shouldn't justice allow any sufficiently qualified expert, regardless of opinion, to be called by defence lawyers? It is then up to the judge and jury to decide between conflicting viewpoints. It appears not. So it's ok to allow parents to be wrongly convicted of manslaughter rather than allow any challenge to medical orthodoxy?
Judge Jeffreys is alive and well and living in modern Britain.
Get rid of all those involved
The vicar who conducted hundreds of sham marriages between mainly African men and Eastern European women and two accomplices have rightly been convicted. Hopefully, the Africans concerned will be deported. Those "poor desperate women" do not appear to have been coerced or duped but were knowlingly involved in illegal activities and should be expelled too, anything less is a clear signal that others from Estonoia etc can do the same thing with impunity.
Why are we so reluctant to expel EU nationals who have engaged in criminal activity, who beg on the streets or who are dependent on the UK taxpayer when we have the legal right under EU articles to do so?
Arizona
Like most of us in the UK, people in the US and especially Arizona have simply had enough of their whole way of life being changed by immigration. Even people of my acquaintance who have always been liberal left in outlook are expressing concerns. Yes, one can understand that the proposed state law might have appeared discriminatory to any Mexicans who were legally there as nobody wants to be quizzed just because of how they look but they also had something to gain in the long run. The flood of illegal migrants raises resentment against them too and, if experience in the UK is anything to go by, they are probably the main targets of crime by illegals. If the measure worked, and the exodus to other states suggested it was working, the necessity to carry out checks would rapidly diminish anyway.
Obummer is supposed to be bringing in tougher immigration laws but all his rhetoric on the subject looks like the meaningless, Blairite emptiness we are used to from him and presumably will not include the most effective measure of all, routine checking of immigration status. If you don't do that you have no effective control over illegals at all.
Update: The same idiocy in the UK. Police should not be stopping people for no reason on the streets but when there is reason, following information received or after surveillance or on arrest for any offence when there are reasonable grounds for suspicion these questions should be asked. Similarly, on application for any form of state benefit, like NHS treatment, checks should always be made. Let's be logical here, unless you ask people where they are from and check their right to be here, how are you going to detect if they are illegal immigrants at all?
How to really save money on defence
It has been suggested that the UK should save money by cutting Trident, either by reducing the number of submarines and/or not having one on patrol at all times.
When you think about it, actually having a nuclear deterrent is pretty pointless. It is obvious we will never use it to protect our interests in a conventional war. If our government felt that nuking a few million Argies to save £1.2bn on the Falklands conflict wasn't a good idea, what would be? Would our government even use them if the enemy missiles appear on our radar screens? In all probability some top level defence minister would have left the launch codes on the train or, even more likely, a judge would rule that firing back was contrary to the Iranians' human rights, upon which our government would act in typically decisive fashion by announcing a judicial review, due to report in summer, 2026.
That is not to say the threat of nuclear annihilation is not a deterrent factor, it's just that we don't have to waste money on actually having one. It was the Iranians who pointed the way last year with their Photoshopped missile launch. We just need to put a bit more effort into making the pretence genuine and not get caught out like they did. The government should immediately scrap Trident and hire the best Photoshoppers in the business and back up the pictures with other subterfuges and misinformation to convince the world that we still have it.
There is only one problem. Very soon, some lefty Lib Dem twat will complain that the money we are spending on Photoshop experts would be better spent on the disadvantaged and insist that the MOD should be taking on drug addicted youngsters who know how to use MS Paint.
The UK's new Trident submarine
test fires one of its latest nuclear missiles.
Topic: Saving on defence Comment here. Comments so far: 0
Bah!
We at bloggoth hate shopping, especially for clothes, but have a business meeting soon and no decent trousers. Next to impossible to find a decent pair of the right size as almost all them were for fat people. It's simple enough, if your waist measurement is more than your leg length, you're overweight! It takes forever to get round the mall with all these waddling monsters in the way and the escalators are blocked solid with them. Look, fat bastards, does it ever occur to you that if you walked a bit faster, or even walked at all, other than when absolutely necessary, you wouldn't be such great fat ugly lardarses?
The Omen
We at bloggoth always collect any decent remains, mostly deer, we find while jogging in the woods and they go into our pondside collection. We get some very strange looks from people who see us come back clutching piles of bones, we don't know why. Those who only see dead animals by the roadside probably imagine that deer dying in the woods go through a prolonged smelly corpse stage but it isn't so, they are soon picked totally clean by the foxes, badgers and escaped pumas you get round here. Recent bones are so clean of any flesh you would think they have been processed in a machine.
As soon as we have enough deer bones we intend to invoke the magic rituals and bring them back to a semblance of life in an evil form, THE ZOMBIE DEER MONSTER, to attack MR PIKEY SCUM and that bloody nuisance with a noisy car alarm thing that sounds at 7 am. Yesterday saw the completion of a major step in the process, we have enough toothy jaws to create an essential element in the invocation of the evil woodland powers.
THE DEER JAW SWASTIKA
PS Non existent readers may say it's the wrong way round. Not so, as any fool would surely know, a left rotating Swastika is way more evil than the conventional sort used by politically correct liberal lefties like Adolph.
About bleedin time
At last, atheist schools. A small step towards getting the noose of irrational faith from around society's neck. It won't necessarily give us rational laws, there are plenty of non religious idiot dogmas, socialism makes even Islam look sensible, but it should help.
Pay for your own damn superstitions
It really is about time that the religious picked up the bill for their own choices rather than expect others to do so. We don't have a problem with Muslims wanting to be buried facing in a certain direction as it seems quite harmless, like Sharia banking or not eating pork, but why should the rest of us pay even part of any extra costs involved? This is just plain unreasonable.
Us atheists should get a council tax rebate as we are dead easy to dispose of. You can put we at bloggoth in the dustbin, bury us in a landfill or cut us into bits and flush us down the toilet for all we care. When you're dead you're dead, we aren't going to notice.
PS Although obviously we would prefer to be jammed down MR PIKEY SCUM'S chimney and stink the place out. The thought of that would give us pleasure while we were still alive.
Another idiocy from a decomposing coalition
Turkey in the EU, consulting India on our immigration policy, spouting PC crap on Gaza, this government is going down the drain so fast we can hear a huge gurgling noise through our window.
Energy policy too, insane. We at bloggoth spent years working on power station simulators, coal fired, gas fired and nuclear and know a bit about it but many can see the reality for themselves. If they drive past a wind turbine daily on the way to and from work they will often see it immobile because wind speed is too low or too high. On the weather forecast you don't see different weather in every county, a belt of stormy weather will cover hundreds of miles. Wind turbines might make sense in the wide open spaces of the US or Russia but weather fronts can cover so much of our small country that a large percentage of these turbines will be out of action at times. Perhaps we are all supposed to get up when the wind blows moderately and go to bed when it doesn't?
The idea that windfarms can supply what we need is nuts and we need to start building nuclear stations now; even the last Labour government had the sense to say that. (Although not the sense to actually start doing anything about it, that goes without saying.) We would say more but The Mail has already said it so we don't neeed to be arsed. Huhne is a total dickhead.
And another arrogant twat is here
We wondered how long it would take. Camoron is now officially a total arsehole on bloggoth and a new name will be coming shortly. He has pledged to push for EU membership by Turkey and has shown all the arrogance and contempt for ordinary voters' concerns that we became so used to under the last administration. Rather than allow a debate on the issue and rationally address those concerns or even acknowledge that valid concerns may exist, he has simply dismissed all opposition as being driven by protectionism, narrow nationalism or prejudice. Not really, it's just that:
- Most aren't such idiots that they see the things done by Islamic governments abroad, even when they those governments themselves say
they are following Islamic law, as nothing to do with Islam.
- They aren't such idiots as to see the numerous attacks on non Muslims abroad, even when the attackers themselves say they are avenging some
supposed insult to Islam, as nothing to do with Islam.
- They aren't such idiots as to so totally misunderstand human nature that they fail to see that in any conflict between extremists of one's own kind
and outsiders, even ordinary people will not necessarily come down on the side we would like them to.
- They aren't such idiots as not to see that many Muslims opposed to terrorism still want to see Islamic laws, some of them quite objectionable,
implemented in the UK.
- They aren't such idiots that they haven't noticed how the Islamic block vote in marginal constituencies is already influencing the outcome of our elections,
given that Muslim sites tell us that is what they are doing.
- They aren't such idiots as not to see that an EU that includes Turkey is going to even more inclined to impose laws on all of us that
are favourable to Islam.
- They aren't such idiots as to gamble our future on a vague hope that some moderate version of Islam will win
out in the often violent battle that is currently being waged within that religion when all the signs, worldwide, indicate that Islam is becoming more extreme.
- They aren't such idiots as not to see the warning signs, the election of an Islamic party, the defence of Iran, the support for
extremist groups in seeking to end the Gaza blockade, that show which way the Turkish government is going.
- They aren't such idiots as to not have noticed the regular occurence of honour killings in some regions and rural areas of Turkey , nor
that this offence is on the rise, nor that polls there have shown astonishingly widespread support for such barbarism.
- They aren't such idiots as to not see how free movement of Turks within the EU will impact our crime figures when much of the heroin trade in the UK, with all the violent crime that supports it, is already run by Turkish gangs.
We at bloggoth were inclined to think far too much was made of that "junior partner to the US in 1940" comment, anyone can make a minor slip but these comments on Turkey suggest deep ignorance, the ignorance of someone who has never read the objectionable comments and actions of Islam's prophet in the Haddiths, who has never looked into what goes on in Islamic nations and why, who has never looked at the UK police reports into drug trafficing, vote rigging and honour killing, who has never seen how very different the ordinary people are outside Istanbul and other tourist areas of Turkey.
They suggest also the same arrogance that {Lying Scottish C* ... Brownstuff} showed in his "bigotgate" comments, the arrogance of a leader who makes grandiose policy statements that make him look good but neglects to look into the boring little details of what those policies will mean for UK citizens, the arrogance of a leader who protects himself at our expense and who can afford to live in a rich area away from the problems those policies inflict on the rest of us.
Topic: What a maroon Comment here. Comments so far: 0
The twat is back
We had hoped to have seen the last of {Lying Scottish C* ... Brownstuff} but no such luck it seems. The bastard is in the news again with his visit to Africa. There is sense in his comments that we need to focus aid more on private sector wealth creation and business-led growth but then that isn't all that unusual. The few times I could stomach listening to him he spoke some good sense, the bastard's problem was that he was totally incapable of actually acting with any! He said we should help business by cutting the burden of red tape on more than one occasion and look at what he gave us, the world's most complicated tax system.
As for the idea that Africa, "a continent of potential and talent", is going to play a part in avoiding a decade of low world growth (he is not talking about access to raw materials) - that's typical pious politician bollox! It is in everyone's interest that African economies make progress as quickly as possible but there are no indications that that renaissance moment is going to happen in any African country this century, let alone this decade.
Still, there's one good thing about his visit this time round, at least he isn't in a position to give away a few hundred million of UK taxpayers' money like he always did on previous visits.
What secrets?
The "secret documents" on Wikileaks appear to be a catalogue of things that were either totally obvious and/or already well known. Beats me what they are fussing about. Aren't there unreported civilian casualties, cases of the enemy getting hold of your own weapons and secret capture or kill missions in every war?.
The most damaging, supposedly, is the revelation that elements in the Pakistan are aiding the Taliban. Apart from being bleedin' obvious, an article in New Europe was saying that over a year ago as reported on bloggoth. How is it damaging if NATO citizens see unpublished details of civilian casualties? Are we seriously to suppose that Afghans themselves hadn't already noticed? That Jihadists haven't already supplied exagerrated reports to their own potential supporters? Then there's the idea that the US had no idea what they were getting into and vastly underrated the task ahead. That was frigging obvious too, as we said way, way back in bloggoth8. For once we do not lay claim to godlike perception as any drunk in any pub could have told you that before these conflicts started. In fact, as that last bloggoth item says, one did.
According to the Independent this leak could endanger UK troops. It is hard to see how statements of the bleedin' obvious would do that so maybe Wikileaks is also publishing sensitive security details but it seems odd that the papers aren't mentioning it. Unfortunately, we cannot access the site at the moment, presumably as everyone else as trying to. For the moment we can but express scepticism as we have seen governments use this ploy rather too often, telling us that data cannot be revealed due to security implications when in fact it only cannot be revealed because it would be embarrassing to those governments.
Crassly stupid assumptions about the way this war was embarked on, major mistakes that kill civilans, the dubious nature of our allies, these are all things citizens ought to know in a democracy, things we should be able to judge our leaders on come the next election.
Update: Watched Channel 4 News on the issue. Afghan spokesman saying there was nothing that hadn't been reported before, political guru saying it was far more of a political embarrassment than a security risk. We don't know why news channels bother with pundits and experts at all really. They might just as well report the basics and put at the bottom of the screen "For latest brilliant analysis of this news, see www.xoggoth.org/pages/bloggoth.html"
Update 2: It has been suggested that the leaked material can be used to identify informants. If that is true it changes the whole argument, it is appalling that those who help NATO forces should be put at risk.
Topic: What secrets? Comment here. Comments so far: 0
Sacred glory holes
A member of the clergy quoted by the magazine put the proportion of gay priests in the Italian capital at 98% ...
A review eight years ago of research on the American church concluded that between a quarter and a half of seminarians and priests there were homosexual.
A former Italian MP and gay activist, Franco Grillini, said: "If all the gays in the Catholic church were to leave it at once – something we would very much like –
they would cause it serious operational problems"
We at bloggoth haven't been to confession since throwing off the yoke of religious idiocy at the age of 14 and never saw or heard of any of this stuff then. A confessional was always similar in size to a public convenience, maybe there are more resemblances these days.
Topic: Sacred glory holes Comment here. Comments so far: 0
No respec'
News of London youths killed in gangland fights appears regularly. A major factor among youths, especially black youths who, politically correct pretence aside, account for most of the gang related murders, is the need for respect. So we have a great idea, ensure that any violence leads to them being treated with no respect at all.
All you need to do is force them, under pain of a much longer prison sentence, to parade through their neigbourhood for a day looking totally ridiculous. Dressed up in a little girl's ballet dress and hopping along singing "I'm a little teapot" with all the appropriate gestures would work wonderfully.
Well done
We at bloggoth were marginally in favour of the release of al-Megrahi at the time, although we obviously had no reason to doubt the evidence that he only had months to live. Morals, ethics, what people deserve, all that is bollux. We prefer take a practical view, a man with only a few months to live is not a major threat provided that you don't let him into a plane unchecked and if his release gave us access to cheaper Libyan oil, that's fine by us. Another factor was some doubt over guilt of this man, if there has been political interference in the judicial process maybe it started with his conviction.
The fact that he is still alive does not prove in any way that the medical opinion was rigged or brought. Predicting how long someone with a given condition will live is not an exact science and there are many, many cases where the predictions have been very wide of the mark, it's just that most of them are not under the scrutiny of people who have already made up their minds.
It seems that Salmond, Straw and others have refused to go to the US at the request of senators. Good for them. Right or wrong, sensible or misguided, humane reasons or corruption, this was a British/Scottish decision and as a sovereign nation/would be nation neither has any reason to explain its decisions to the US.
Update: We at bloggoth do not like Peter Hitchens in general but in this article, he is totally right. To add a bit of detail, the USA got 7 bases on a 99 year lease (although most were actually closed after the war) free of all rent and charges in exchange for 50 destroyers, all of which were of WW1 era and had already been mothballed.
.Chance calculator
We repeatedly see simplistic soutions arising from a failure to understand statistics; if we at bloggoth had our way it would be a compulsory subject in all schools. When the statistics do indicate a link we get failures to appreciate that A and B may have a common cause and that A does not necessarily cause B.
The second big error is to imagine that a correlation provides the causes or the solutions. In real life you get complex feedback situations where A, B and other factors can be partial causes of each other. For example, crime in a group may increase with poverty but the perception by others that the group is disproportionately criminal is a factor in them being marginalised and unemployed, and that creates poverty. Even if the prospects for a reasonable living via legal means are made available, crime may be seen as the easier and more profitable option. The leftist approach, to concentrate on alleviating poverty or the rightist approach, to focus on cracking down on crime, may be equally ineffective, you need to do both.
The third idiocy is the failure to appreciate that an apparent correlation is not proof that a link actually exists, only a good reason to investigate further. This BBC chance calculator on hospital fatalities illustrates the misconception rather well.
Topic: Chance calculator Comment here. Comments so far: 0
The truth about aging
If you are inclined to write brilliant short stories as do we at bloggoth you keep a pad by your bed in case you think of something. In most cases, even if we can read it, we can't remember what we were thinking about the next day. When we can we often find it has a serious logical flaw and can't be developed.
At around 4am this morning we scrawled "monster eats your past". The idea is that supernatural creatures have a taste for eating the human life experience and some taste much better than others. These creatures snuffle around in the past until they find a baby whose future life smells promising and then move forward eating its experiences so that its memories are progressively erased.
The problem with that is that our earliest experiences are our most formative ones, the ones that determine the major aspects of our character as well as being those that provide the most fundamental aspects of our education like being able to talk. So the monster would only need to eat a few months before our adult would become a babbling illiterate psychopath and get locked up, pretty much ending the story. So maybe our monster should begin at the other end and work backwards eating our most recent memories first.
Hang on, isn't loss of recent memory exactly what happens in dementia? It is quite clear that these monsters really exist! In fact maybe these monsters are responsible for us aging. Bastards! We at bloggoth are detemined to reveal the truth. Watch this space.
PS xoggoth tales make much more sense if you are one of the few with the mental skills to appreciate them. Fortunately, there is a simple exercise that anyone can do to improve their comprehension.
- Take one brick wall
- Bang head hard on wall
- Repeat step 2 with increasing force until you appreciate the utter brilliance of xoggoth tales
PS The conclusion that hungry monsters cause dementia is not a questionable one as non existent readers might surmise from reading the item on statistics above this one. We at bloggoth have ways of discerning the truth that you lesser mortals could not understand.
Oh FFS, just STFU!
Some cut in government expenditure on South East News tonight, another cut that will "hit the vulnerable", another cut that, according to its supporters, will "cost more in the long run". No, we haven't got the faintest idea what the cut actually was, it went in one ear and out the other. When you have heard these identical bloody stupid arguments from fanatics defending their own tiny corner about a million times it all turns into a grey blur of unrealistic idiocy.
Wake up to reality. Money is not a free and inexhaustible commodity. Given the same resources, everything you spend on worthy cause x is that much less to spend on essential cause y. If you forcibly take away more of the wealth of ordinary people to finance both, people who have their own natural priorities, like the happiness and wellbeing of themselves and their families, they have less incentive to bother and produce that wealth in the first place and the pot shrinks. This is the reality of leftist, state-enforced wealth distribution. That is why every Communist state has been an economic disaster, why Europe has always lagged the US in economic performance.
We are not saying that human nature is solely about greed, that is an equal idiocy of the Thatcherite right. The nature of men is complex, we are social animals and concern for those we can relate to and emphasise with is important to us; helping them promotes our own feelings of wellbeing. But those emotions need to exist and they are not fostered by state imposition or by abstract idealism. Let charity be charity, let people help those who they choose to help. If people are truly worthy of our aid then the contributions should all even out in the end.
If not, well, what would you imagine has the rational priorities, nature or the leftist state?
Topic: Oh FFS just STFU Comment here. Comments so far: 0
From the horse's mouth
Or the Muslim News to be exact.
British Muslim population stands to lose out of a Conservative Lib Dems coalition Government because the kind of things that British Muslim rely on like health, education and housing or job creation programmes or support for child care, or elder care, child tax credits, child tax funds - those services that Labour introduced in the last 13 years.
Ah yes! State handouts.
Move along - more stuff of no interest
Most non existent readers can ignore this - more rabbiting about birds and little flies and things.
We at bloggoth have been most distressed about the number of little birdies who have flown into our office window this summer. We hear or see more than one a week on average and there are often little corpses on the patio.
A couple of weeks back we had a Wood Pidgeon limping about with blood dripping from its beak and resolved to find a solution. Think we have one! Christmas tree decorations! Just hang a few strands of tinsel over the window. No hits since!
Another problem was birds getting stuck in the greenhouse. Usually it works if you hang around behind and scare them just enough to head for the door but not enough so they really panic and bash themselves on the glass. But last week this Bluetit just would not leave, kept bonking itself against the panes. In the end we went in to catch it and it was really easy; their behaviour totally changes when the threat is close, they stop flying about, find a corner and become completely immobile. Felt funny holding this tiny bird, took it outside and let it go and it immediately expressed its gratitude by flying onto the trellis and crapping on my rasberries.
Solved that problem with some netting over the door. The really wierd thing is that I no longer need the fly rescue machine. This netting has a 15mm mesh but it keeps out nearly all flies, including the very tiniest, under 1mm in size. It seems that small flies only fly in open spaces, presumably to avoid risk of being caught by spider webs. Ain't nature rational?
Never 'eard of em
No really, but this review of The xx in the DT caught my eye. xoggoth thinks anyone using a lower case x is worth a look. All a bit samey but it ain't half bad for today's music.
Here we go again
Despite our ranty and scornful nature we at bloggoth have occasionally expressed approval of political figures based on what is in the public domain about them. Unfortunately, over and over again, a less favourable truth emerges. Is this happening with Ban Ki-moon? He had seemed a reasonable head of an idiot institution. It may be an unustified attack but that article hints that senior US figures have the same view.
We used to think Simon Hughes and Dianne Abbot were ok for lefties but they turned out to be total hypocrites. We have praised Trevor Phillips in the past for his genuinely unbiased views on British culture but then along came those stories of corruption and incompetence. We used to like Jack Straw until his attempts to keep MPs' expense fiddles secret. What next? Will Cameron and Clegg disappoint despite a mostly promising start? Will the very sensible (for archbishops) Archbishops Tutu or Sentamu turn out to be kiddy fiddlers?
Obviously any idea that leaders of any sort are not utter bastards is misguided and we at bloggoth apologise most unreservedly for our past errors. What's that Mr J Sprat, one of the non existent bloggoth readers? You are thinking of standing as an MP in the next election? Get off my blog, you incompetent corrupt bastard!
Not that the third world is all bad
The elections in Rwanda look to be about par for the course, with allegations about politically motivated killings.
Hang on a minute though. Politically motivated killings? We never bothered to watch those dull debates between the party leaders before the election, but had we been able to watch {Lying Scottish C* ... Brownstuff} being hacked to death with machetes by messrs Cameron and Clegg we would not have missed it for the world.
Another hidden cost
Beats me why some choose to live in such a PC dream world about the effects of migrants from violent and corrupt third world societies on our own. Curiously selective too. If they read of lewd and drunken behaviour by young white British people in foreign resorts do they instantly denounce the mere mention of it as racism without looking into the facts? Probably not.
We were trying to find out why our van insurance premium went up 34% this year. It seems it is largely due to a huge wave of "crash for cash" insurance fraud by Asian gangs. If you are unlucky enough to be a victim a higher insurance premium may be the least of your worries, these people can be murderers. I really wish blanket terms like Asian or black were not used in connection with crime as they are really most unfair to law abiding members of those groups. Problems spring from national or regional cultures or religions, not from residence on a particular continent or a skin colour. In this case the term appears to be most unfair to Indians, a group that, according to all the statistics, really do appear to be a benefit. The areas worst affected and especially all the Muslim names - Muhammed, Ahmed, Hussein, Shahid, Abdullah, Jahangir, Milad, Sajid, Nasreen, Parveen, Musharaf , Ershad, Iqbal, Zeeshan etc suggest Pakistani origin.
Yet another cost on us all, one of many, which is never counted in all those studies of how we benefit from migrants. How can we have any sensible policies or laws on immigration when we are never allowed to mention all of the facts on which to base them?
Topic: Another hidden cost Comment here. Comments so far:
Miserable lot
There is a little Barbecue thing at xoggoth Towers on Thursday so checked the weather for our locality:
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| BBC weather says it will be crap | ukweather.com says it will be great | |
If weather.com is wrong, well, anyone can make a mistake. If the BBC is wrong be prepared for bloggoth rants about how state subsidised, overpaid, liberal lefties can never get anything right. What better justification is there to cut the licence fee than trying to ruin a xoggoth barbecue?
Update: Yep, almost clear skies. No rain. Crappy lefty BBC!
Another of our heros defeated
Sad News. WESLEY SNIPES has lost his battle to escape a three-year jail term for tax evasion. Damn. We had hoped he would succeed, after all, who is better suited to win against the taxman than someone who has battled against evil bloodsucking vampires?
Another bloggoth exclusive
Cadburys taken over by Kraft, then US support to have BP taken over by Exxon Mobil. Wonder who would make most profit from that? Have Obummer/US politicians got any shares/other interests in the deal we wonder?
Today we at bloggoth learned through our industry sources that one of the few really successful big household name companies we have left, Rolls Royce, is to be taken over by Kentucky Fried Chicken. Watch out for engines that might be ok if they were not totally buried in fucking croutons.
Better and better
We at bloggoth have said before, though we cannot be arsed to reference it, that Mandelson was far and away one of the better Labour sorts, at least he was usually sensible (ie not very lefty) and any corruption (so far) has been relatively minor. We at bloggoth really don't care if politicians enrich themselves within reason as long as they give us sensible law. The chap has gone up even further in our estimation with publication of his memoirs - damaging New Labour, offending murdering bastards like the Mad Messiah, pointing out some truths about the insane {Lying Scottish C* ... Brownstuff}. Great! Saves us saying it! Now it seems that the Prince of Darkness has offended that utter twat The Prince of Daftness by reporting a conversation they had. Fantastic!!!
He writes: ‘He was concerned about his image. How did I think he was seen? “You command more affection, or sympathy, and respect than you realise,” I said, but I added that some people had “gained the impression you feel sorry for yourself, that you’re rather glum and dispirited”.’
Perceived with affection and sympathy? Polls indicate that 1 in 5 are against him succeeding as king. Only a slight majority prefer to see him succeed rather than his son and those were before the latest scandal about him using his entirely unmerited influence in a planning issue. Of that slight majority how many simply vote that way because they believe in tradition? This is not a contest between equals after all and it is a measure of the dissatisfaction with the twat that there has been a poll on the subject at all.
Many like we at bloggoth see him as a total arse. His only plus point is that if he takes over it may be easier to get rid of this bunch of overpaid welfare claimants altogether. Let them earn their wealth according to their own abilities like the rest of us, sure there's some vacancies at the Tesco checkouts.
Descendents
The missus has been watching one of those things about some star tracing her ancestors. She likes stuff like that, it is one of her many, many peculiarities. We at bloggoth have never gone beyond knowing about our grandparents, although we do vaguely remember as a toddler having to kiss a great grand mother, a ghastly, ancient, mothball-smelling, blind thing dressed in black in a dark room. We were really terrified we might catch her blindness. Funny, it never occurred to us until writing this that the memory may explain our total aversion to any sort of physical contact unless it's with a sexual partner. We hate it when anyone tries that awful social huggy kissy stuff, we just won't do it.
Wouldn't it be great to trace one's ancestors and find a previously undiscovered document to show you were descended from Jack the Ripper? But, if the living have such an interest in tracing their antecedents, is it possible that the dead are equally interested in finding out how their descendants turned out? What would they think of us?
Topic: Descendents Comment here. Comments so far: 0
Who wants the ugly old twat in Britain?
There was a time, long ago, that religion was almost always a positive thing. In a more primitive age, it played an important part in reinforcing necessary social rules and helped men to make sense of the world, indeed some have suggested it played an important role in evolution. In those times the less attractive ideals of religion, like a subordinate role for women, probably made sense. When the threat of violent invasion is ever present, the decisions need to be made by the physically strongest and most violent gender.
Those times are past, at least in the developed world, and the attitude of all the "religions of the book" to women as exemplified by the Vatican's pronouncement that ordaining women is a grave crime is an affront to civilisation. It really doesn't matter that it is only the priesthood from which they are excluded, that exclusion alone sets the principle that a woman, no matter what her personal merits, can never fully be the equal of a man in all ways and that plays a part on setting attitudes in wider society.
Why the hell should the rest of us pay the huge cost of Pope Grandpa Munster's visit to the UK? Even though too many share this attitude to women, do most atheists, agnostics, Anglicans, Methodists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus, Rastafarians, Scientologists or those from any other religion apart from Catholicism want this old bastard to visit us?
Let Catholics pick up the bill or let them do without.
Story time
UK Blog of Culture award
We see that Londonderry has been named UK city of culture. Not sure that culture is what springs to most peoples' mind when they think of Londonderry but we have never been there so we aren't going to argue that it's not justified.
But never mind that trivia, what's far more important is the title of The UK Blog of Culture. We at bloggoth are announcing this important competition today. Non existent readers of bloggoth with their own inferior blogs are reminded to get their bids in to we at bloggoth before nominations close in, 3,2 1, too late! Sorry, you've missed the deadline. Please try and get your entries in a bit more promptly next year. And so without further ado, we hand you over to the manky skulls who will be presenting the awards this year
The first and only entry for the awards this year is bloggoth. On bloggoth this year we have seen xoggoth artwork which, in shear artistic skill, puts the works of Leonardo Da Vinci in the shade.
We have read original stories on bloggoth that make the works of Graham Greene and other British authors seem dull.
We have seen witty and biting cartoons that make those of past British cartoonists like Giles or David Low look second rate.
We have had brilliant and incisive political commentary that makes bloggoth the first reference of choice for major politicians all over the world.
AND bloggoth mentioned Wagner in the last post - how cultured is that?
And so, without further ado, here to present the award for UK Blog of Culture 2010 is Mr Manky Mouse Mummy.
Thank you, Mr P! I have the envelope here and the winner of the UK Blog of Culture 2010 is....
bloggoth!
Thank you all. In accepting this award I would like to pay a especial tribute to MYSELF whose briliance made this all possible and I would like to personally thank ME for everything I have I done which, though I say it myself (and that counts for much more than if said by others) was absolutely typically brilliant. This award was thoroughly deserved. And now to take us out, I present the manky deer skull singers.
Topic: UK Cultural Blog Award Comment here. Comments so far: 0
Brill 2 (and SOOOOOOOOOOO cultured, British blog of culture awards take note)
Looked for this 2 or 3 years ago but classical music seemed very poorly represented on You Tube. Lots of versions there now, Wagner's Overture from Tanhauser . Best bit of music ever in the history of the universe.
Brill
Where has my Fleetwood Mac CD gone? Have one of you barstewards taken it?
Financial statement of the Man on the Clapham Omnibus for the Year ending 2010
There's a frightening item in The Independent today about the true scale of public sector debt. The Office for National Statistics puts the figure at £4 trillion, four times higher than previously acknowledged.
Contrary to the nonsense trotted out by leftist public sector unions that their members are unfairly bearing the cost of banking failures it puts the cost of unfunded public sector pensions at about the same figure as financial sector interventions. Much of the money loaned to banks may yet be paid back and some loans have already turned a profit for the taxpayer. There has been a similar picture in the US. Factor in the fact that the coalition plans to recover the money via higher bank taxes anyway and it is clear that unfunded public sector pensions, after the state pension, are the major long term liability. Even were that not so and rich bankers were entirely to blame, why would it be reasonable for private sector workers to take all the pain while public sector workers are protected?
The most interesting thing about this article though is at the end, the plan to have "whole government accounting" and draw up an annual balance sheet for the public sector. But why stop there? It would not really tell us which departments are the least productive and if we did balance sheets for those it won't tell us which individuals are most responsible. And why look at just government departments? What about welfare, one of the biggest drains on our economy?
What we really need is for every adult in the UK to be forced to draw up annual accounts for what they pay into and get from society and the state. Tax/NI paid, useful voluntary work, serving in the armed forces etc would be treated as pluses like income, while any state costs like welfare, prison sentences, legal aid, NHS treatment, the state pension etc or any help from charities would be treated as minuses like expenses. Anyone with a profit and loss account carrying forward a net loss for four or more years would be summarily executed.
Companies are not allowed to continue while insolvent, so why should people?
PS Any feeling individuals among the non existent readership may say what about the disabled or some such. Yeh, yeh, stick in a special allowance or something, we refuse to spoil our silly impractical suggestion with tedious reality.
Topic: Citizen accounts Comment here. Comments so far: 0
Maybe the wrong people are dealing with it.
The xoggoth area is very good for new age alternative health nuttiness. If you are looking for accupuncture, homeopathy, herbal medicine, osteopathy, aromatherapy, reflexology, meditation, crystal healing, Chinese medicine, a Flower essence Practicioner, Indian head massage or any other sort of massage *Note 1 you don't have to go very far.
There is a Gaia natural health clinic very close too. The Gaia hypthesis is that the Earth is controlled by complex feedback mechanisms that keep it in an optimal state for living things. Some go further, suggesting that the Earth acts like a living entity, like Gaia the primordial goddess. If this totally convincing idea is correct and the Earth really is a big lady then putting BP, a company who are experts in drilling holes and sucking stuff out, in charge of trying to repair the Gulf oil leak is like putting a mosquito in charge of soothing a mosquito bite.
If Gaia needs our help then we should turn to a company with experience in helping human women deal with similar problems. Who else but Tena?
Note: Apart from the sort that we at bloggoth would be interested in.
Thank the atheist god for that
We at bloggoth just renewed our 10 year passport. Naturally our photo looks little different from the one in the previous passport, or the one before that. Ageing is for all you lesser mortals. In so far as it does look a tiny bit older, we are very pleased with the trend. Once men get over sixty there are only two ways their facial appearance can go. Either they turn into MISERABLE OLD GITS like Mel Gibson or into GHASTLY OLD QUEENS like Roger Moore.
In a MISERABLE OLD GIT the eyes get accentuated by increasing bags and shadows while the furrows on either side of the mouth get progressively deeper and the sides of the mouth turn down more and more until, just before death, they catch up with the nipples at a prearranged location just above the knees.
In a GHASTLY OLD QUEEN, the eyebrows fade away and the eyes merge into little dots on either side of the nose. The mouth stays where it is but the lips progressively disappear to become a little puckered scar. The general effect is of a little girl hit in the face with a custard pie.
We at bloggoth are proud to be very much in the MISERABLE OLD GIT bloodline.
Working on it
We said a while back that we really hated not referring to Cameron/Clegg using silly made up names that express the total scorn and hatred that politicians usually deserve to receive from citizens but it has all been far too pragmatically sensible so far.
Is this the moment where the dogma-driven blitheration begins? Plans to let GPs "get control of NHS funds" looks like a step beyond the Tory nonsense of Internal Markets we got under Thatcher. The real free market, provided suitable regulation exists, works because there is a financial incentive to deliver a better service to customers. This incentive does not apply here because there are not going to be loads of these consortia in every area so that people can pick and choose. In practice sick people, many of them elderly, are not going to be able to travel anywhere they want to see any GP even if the catchment areas are ended.
The real free market also works because it evolves over time and it is the most successful companies that have survived. To just hand NHS money over to untried consortia of doctors is insane as many will not prove competent at management, at least not without spending even more on management consultants than it now costs to run the NHS Trusts. Some will also be corrupt/fraudulent and others will divert money in accordance with their own agendas, spending disproportionately on their own pet obsessions, their own ethnic groups etc. How long will it be before we read news of doctors channelling money into their personal accounts or covering up malpractice by one of their members or of some consortium in Birmingham taking Muslims only? Who or what is going to monitor these consortia?
There are said to be far too many managers in the NHS. Surely the solution is to get rid of the least effective, to throw out Labour's rigid targets and red tape and try and improve the Trusts' efficiency? That is where Tory dogma would make sense, to bring in proper principles of retaining and rewarding public sector staff based on their individual abilities. Even if currently inefficient, at least the NHS Trusts do exist and operate, should be largely free of major corruption and reasonably impartial in allocating funds.
To simply dump them in favour of some untested crackpot collective scheme is purely idiotic, we trust Camoron and Clogs will think again or their names on bloggoth will get a lot worse than that.
Topic: GP Consortia Bollux Comment here. Comments so far: 0
Ignore rules of supply and demand and markets don't work - funny that
The prospects for graduates looking for work are extremely poor, with employers wanting at least a 2:1 degree. Even we at bloggoth (we got a 1st, have we mentioned that lately?) can sympathise with these lesser mortals. Some of the problem is due to the downturn that will see even competent people struggling but another major reason is given in this article in The Independent .
With the number of students soaring annually, competition for jobs is intensifying. More than twice as many graduates now chase every available job compared with the early 1980s, and the prognosis is that it'll get worse.
WTF? What exactly is the point of encouraging ever increasing numbers of people to get academic qualifications if the demand for those with them is not increasing at remotely the same rate and will not do so even when the economy improves? This was the typical imbicility of a socialist government. Totally ignore the principles of the market and then totally fail to ensure that those principles do not apply.
This is another reason why socialism necessarily leads to dictatorship. To impose rules so that supply and demand in accordance with normal human wants and freedom of choice do not apply, so that the micro mechanisms of the economy function as the Marxist mind requires. You can be sure that the New Labour Junta would have solved this problem once they had taken all the necessary powers. Then every graduate in Media Studies could have had the title of Media Studies Manager while sweeping the streets. We would all (apart from our rulers obviously) earn only a little more than the average citizen of Haiti, but hey, we would all be equal, every citizen fulfilling his potential regardless of background, that's the main thing!
Topic: Graduate jobs Comment here. Comments so far: 0
Musical machines
The UK seems to be better at "preserving" our industrial heritage than making a go of new technology. Inventing might be a better word, as we have a suspicion that some of those mines, mills and factories lovingly created inside heritage museums for the tourists bear little resemblance to the original. We at bloggoth live right near the Bluebell Railway and that's no exception. I bet there wasn't a train called Stepney with a face painted on the front running on the line when Beeching axed it. Worst of all, when they put down the section of line that runs through our village they ruined a marvellous swampy area inhabited by lots of NICE little newts. BASTARDS - we have hated them ever since.
We digress. Well, no, actually we don't as that implies we even started off in the right direction to start with. What we really meant is that we pregress, ie, at the very outset we set off in a random direction that has almost nothing to do with what we meant to say. It's a good word, especially as it was we at bloggoth who just invented it. Take note because everyone will be using it soon.
Where were we? Oh no, we weren't were we? Start again. Sitting in the garden we often hear the darn steam engines chuffing past. Today, when it speeded up it reminded us of a tiny fragment from Holst's Planet Suite. That's an idea, if machines must make noise why can't they fix them so that they play some music? The trains are not that much of a problem but some of the noisy motor mowers and strimmers around here are. Surely it can't be that expensive to stick, say, a trumpet on a mower's exhaust with electrically operated valves so it can play a few Humphrey Littleton numbers while it's cutting the grass? Maybe the electronics could be controlled via mobile phone signals so if there is more than one mower/strimmer in use in a locality they can be coordinated to play a symphony.
Smaller things too. There is something quite bagpipey about the sound of a vacuum cleaner and they need a dustbag anyway. Why not have the bag visible and make it in tartan? Saves on the cost of the casing. Then, while doing your carpet you can listen to pipe classics like Bonny Bonny Banks or Amazing Grace. That pathetic little faltering buzz my Braun shaver makes might be a bit less annoying if it played flight of the Bumblebee. Since it can't shave worth a damn it might as well entertain me.
Topic: Musical machines Comment here. Comments so far: 0
Dictator dinner set
The missus is going to Berlin with her friend for a few days and asked what little present we would like brought back. Naturally we wanted an Adoph Hitler vodka glass but probably (political correctness gone mad!) they don't do those in Berlin although there is a US site that does Hitler mugs etc including a Hitler Christmas Mug with Adolph wearing a Santa hat.
But what if you wanted a complete dinner set? Having Adolph's rather miserable face on 20+ items would be rather dull and might give the wrong idea, especially to any Jewish friends. Then we had another of our brilliant business ideas! A complete dictator dinner set with a different nasty dictator on each piece. Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao, Idi Amin, Bocassa, Franco, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Hoxha, Ceausescu, Castro, Kim Jong-il, Marcos, Papa Doc Duvalier, erm, erm, and others.
If any non existent readers want me to make them another fortune just send your cheques for £200 to xoggoth Towers, usual address. The first 10 applicants also get the chance to get in on our range of ladies' incontinence pads bearing the faces of famous serial killers.
Topic: Dictator dinner set Comment here. Comments so far: 0
Damn fools - 5 or more
Talking of dictators. Venezualans. Woken up yet? It is taking time but as we have said before all the signs of a leftist dictatorship are falling into place. Buying up influence, changing rules to allow himself to rule indefinitely, confiscating factories that do not match his price impositions, closing down news stations that criticise his government and now trumped up charges against any who do not toe the line.
Democracy and socialism are not compatible. The guy is no Stalin - yet, but watch that space.
Living in the real world
Now it seems we are stuck with that hostile parasite Hamza who most of us would be quite happy to see dissolved slowly in battery acid. Like most sane people in the UK we would like the European Court of Human rights barred from interfering in British affairs and the Human Rights Act replaced with law that protects us from an overbearing state but at the same time recognises that:
- Rights in an overcrowded world must be about balance between one person's rights and those of others.
- There are no rights without duties and the rights of British citizens who have contributed to our society should come before those of foreign nationals who have contributed nothing.
Nevetheless, the assertion in this Daily Mail item that Cameron has shamefully broken a promise to repeal it is absurd. We have a coalition which would never have been formed at all without concessions to the Lib Dems. Why are these people who bleat on about betraying principles so incapable of being rational? Better to make concessions and see some of the changes you believe in than to be holier than thou and see none of them. If anything/anyone is to blame it is a ridiculous voting system that handed Labour a 6% advantage and anyone among the stupid electorate who wants to see the back of law like this who did not vote Tory.
At the moment Cameron and Clegg seem to be making the best of a poor situation for both of them but, needless to say, we at bloggoth are preparing insulting names for when they screw up. We really hate mentioning politicians in terms of anything but derision. Those who lead us should be continually harried by the masses, it stops them invading Poland.
PS Fortunately, the Labour Party is always great at supplying objects of hatred and derision. In particular their hypocricy, the way they send their kids to posh private schools and award themselves or accept huge salaries, honours and privileges while supposedly despising these things, is hilarious. No surprise that that grace and favour mansioning, croquet playing, M4 bus lane grabbing, fat piece of shit Prescott has taken his seat in the Lords. Still, at least there will be less room in the chamber for all the other unelected bastards.
Topic: The real world Comment here. Comments so far: 0
Pope Glitter
It seems that the visit to the UK by Pope Grandpa Munster will cost us £12m even before the security costs are added in. So how will this visit benefit UK citizens in general? The Vatican isn't a real state and buttering up its leader isn't going to bring us more trade or a useful ally in the EU. Christian leaders are not what they were, at least old JC might have done one of his miracles and got us a higher fish quota. If the Catholics want a visit, perhaps they should pay for it.
The whole thing would be more affordable if, instead of Pope Grandpa Munster coming himself, he sent a surrogate to stand in for him. Somebody who properly represents all that the Catholic Church stands for in the world today.
PS Although, considering the age and sex of many of the RC victims and the circumstances involved, the comparison is very unfair on Gary.
Images from Photobucket
Topic: Pope Glitter Comment here. Comments so far: 0
A pitfall of religion
We at bloggoth are not among the atheists who see religion as the source of all the world problems, the basic problem is human nature.
If we had had atheist schools and orphanages for the last few hundred years there would probably have been just as many among the staff willing to abuse the kids as in any RC institution but is is probable that far fewer kids would actually have been abused. The difference is, the staff at an atheist institution would have been subject to a lot more checking, by parents, by the state and by charities and other institutions because nobody would have had any reason to just trust us.
Ministers who claimed to be doing god's work on Earth put themselves on pedestals, their status led to blind trust among many who shared their faith. This problem of child abuse within the RC Church is the tip of a very big iceburg and by no means confined to that religion.
Bears in Sussex
Only today another British big cat news story. How can anyone doubt the existence of these? And worse. Today we at bloggoth went for a run in the woods and were quite terrified to see a large Grizzly Bear on the track ahead of us. Just as well it was preoccupied with eating something, and did not notice us or we might not be here to report this. We know we made a mistake with the squirrel but there was no mistake this time. With typical courageous disregard for our own safety we stayed long enough to take this picture as proof.
Here is a close up of the animal. That's a Grizzly Bear, no doubt at all!
Big apes in Sussex
There are always plenty of stories about big cats in Sussex and some take them entirely seriously. As if they weren't enough the UK countryside is now filling up with big black dogs. We at bloggoth can well believe it as we know for a fact that there are even stranger creatures out there. We took this photo of a big male Orangutan in the woodland behind our house just yesterday.
Topic: Orangutan Comment here. Comments so far: 0
Update: On closer examination we see that it's only a Grey Squirrel. Sorry!
That explains it
Sure we at bloggoth are not the only ones puzzled by the "Russian Spy" case in the US. Maybe the real details are yet to emerge but so far there is no suggestion that they were in the CIA or the military, working on secret government projects or even on confidential high tech-work in the private sector. So what exactly were they spying on? Checking out what Americans are putting in their dustbins maybe? Naturally we Brits don't want to feel unimportant so it is excellent news that, according to the The Daily Express, there are spies in Britain.
TODAY there are probably up to 500 sleepers in Britain, mostly working for Russia, China, Israel or Al Qaeda.
They are so difficult to detect that MI5 does not have a dedicated unit to search for them, but the threat is there because six of them tried to get jobs as MI5 interpreters in 2005.
Sleepers spend years living like model citizens. As they don’t spy there is almost zero chance of catching them. They are activated to act as saboteurs in war or because they have got into a
position of trust and can start to pass secret intelligence.
Despite sometimes difficult relations one would hope that we are past major conflicts with Russia and still a few decades away from major conflicts with China. Israel? If that is true they are probably not seeking a war with Britain but monitoring all the Islamic crap and their leftist allies that we allow such free rein in Britain in order to protect their own nation. The Israelis are sensible like that. Al Quaida? How many Islamic terrorists have actually been part of that organisation in any formal sense? Does it even exist or Is it just a invention by Ed Balls or some other lefty twat to make Islamic terrorism appear unconnected with mainstream Islam?
Funny how Iran is now seen as a threat to world peace in the sense that much effort is devoted to tackling the nuclear threat but we never seem to see it as a direct threat to our internal security in quite the way Russia always has been. We never hear stories of Iranian spies in the Foreign Office. Maybe, going from past history, if they want to recruit the best spies in Britain they should stop executing homosexuals. Just a suggestion, President Imadinnerjacket, as I know you read this blog, like all major world figures.
Topic: Iranian spies Comment here. Comments so far: 0
Last past the post
On its own, PR won't improve democracy one iota. It won't stop shabby deals to take power or hold onto it. It won't make a government keep election promises or take more account of the public's wishes. It won't stop them providing misinformation or burying inconvenient news. It won't stop them giving away power to the EU and other international bodies without reference to the electorate or handing power over British citizens to international courts or to other countries in one sided treaties. It won't stop them embarking on pointless and hugely expensive wars without approval by parliament. It won't stop unelected political appointees, Lords or Bishops having a role in government. It won't stop MPs being bullied into voting as directed by the party whips regardless of their own views.
The Alternative Vote system won't even ensure that the composition of the house reflects the votes for the parties in the country, for that we need the Alternative Vote Plus or the List System.
If we are going to have meaningless PR on its own, why don't we at least use a method that reflects the reality? That the vast majority of the electorate hates the bloody lot of them, doesn't give a shit who their MP is and only vote to keep out the party they loathe the most. The ballot papers should reflect that priority. Why not just ask voters to rate each party for awfulness by selecting the description below that best fits their opinion? The one whose party gets the lowest score is elected. In the event of a tie the Monster Raving Loony Candidate gets it.
- Incompetent and often ignore the electorate's wishes
- Mostly useless except at lining their own pockets
- Unrealistic lunatics
- Utter disaster and corrupt to the core
- Complete wankers who should all be shot
Topic: Last past the post Comment here. Comments so far: 0
A theory of road rage
It is said that incidents of violence always rise in hot weather, something about it that inflames the temper. As far as road rage is concerned there is another good reason that nobody but we at bloggoth seem to have twigged. It is because we have wound the window down and forget that those things that we shout at other road users all the year round can now be heard by them. We at bloggoth are inveterate in car shouters so do not be surprised if you read of an incident in the bloggoth area.
Things like "Hello, your side of the road is quite nice too!" or "Oh thank you SO much for bringing your lorry/tractor/horse out just in front of me on a narrow windy road, that′s just what I needed when I'm late, ARSEHOLE" or "The accelerator is still down there by your right foot where you left it, you stupid old cow" Not all our invective is aimed at people, the inaminate legacy of 11 years of nannying Labour government gets it too. Those fecking illuminated slow down signs: "How about waiting until I actually reach the bloody speed restriction sign before flashing at me?" Rumble strips are the worst. Why the hell does my van have to be shaken to pieces when leaving a speed zone as well as entering it? I am sure I am not alone in my response to those, each bump requires a "WANK". When my van enters or leaves our village in summer, those living near the road will hear: "WANK! WANK! WANK! WANK! WANK! WANK! WANK! WANK! WANK! WANK! WANK! WANK! WANK! WANK! WANK!"
Worst of all are BLOODY CYCLISTS! We have some sympathy with the ordinary chap on his cheap imported Halfords model wending his way to work in the pouring rain but the sort you get in summer drives us apoplectic! Due to our picturesque countryside, the narrow little roads round here are full of smug gits in fancy shorts and helmets on expensive shiny bikes with all the extras and you can't get past them. "Look, you bastard! you're riding a RACING cycle so why don't you get a fucking move on or stop riding in the middle of the road?"
They all look so uniformly identical, telling one from another is like recognising which Cyberman is called Eric. There has to be more than just recreational need behind their fanaticism. How long will it be before cyclists get recategorised as a religious group in PC Britain and one will not be able to swear at them without being prosecuted for religious harrassment?
Topic: Summer road rage Comment here. Comments so far: 0