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The coven:
13 blogs we may look at when not lost in admiration of our own:

Bad Science
HMRC is shite
News Bleat
Nobody′s Friend
the freethinker
mad ramblings
Vacant slot
Vacant slot
Vacant slot
Vacant slot
Vacant slot
Vacant slot
Vacant slot
Islam totally sucks links:
Gates Of Vienna
Jihad Watch
Last commenty thing that we could be bothered to create. (Lazy old git)
Links to items
More slug artwork

Ebola again PS

Ebola again

WAD

Hang on

Ho hum

Talking of prophets

Talking of prophets 2

Excellent!

Good for you truckers!

Ah! fuck it!

Ah! fuck it 2!

Ah! fuck it 3!

Quite

Modern perspectives

Who reads it anyway?

Who reads it anyway 2?

Bash

Overstated but not my fault!

Peddling the myth

Peddling the myth 2

So where is the racism?

The arsehole is partly right

Suspicious devices

Whatever happened to Time and Motion Studies?

A solution to all mankind's ills

This week's post we could not be arsed to write ourselves

Sensible chap

F* Cats!

That sensible lefty again

Low skilled immigration is not a positive, it is taking us backwards

Women in my life

Worrying

Camoron is right

Product variety

Aaaaaaaaaaah

The merits of real nationalism

Eventually?

Lenny Henry

REAL democracy

Mmmmm! Damn!

Endangered species

Hallelujah!

Foresight

More coindidences

New condition

Value in a crap film

Real non racism is assuming everyone is as crap as everyone else

Rhythm of the falling rain

Satanism

Darn it!

Come back

On faith and drink

Workers

A vote can't be democratic can it?

Privacy or privates?

Anticipation

Real Reality TV

That's communism - yes, it really is!

Yet another illustration - as if needed

History

Like this

Quite

Flooding? We just need more flying pink zebras!



Page 51

The ramblings of an old git

bloggoth Mission Statement:

          We aim to never raise our sights above the gutter and preferably to stay much lower

More slug artwork

A few posts back we showed some great art made by the slugs feeding on the algae on our greenhouse glass. Here's a couple more, even more brilliant. Look closely at the first and there's a great cartoon face of a rather sad little girl. Reminds me of a comic book character but can't recall which. The second is even better, what a brilliant drawing of a lion!



Ebola again PS

So now they are going to screen arrivals. How will that stop infected persons exactly? A flight takes about 12 hours but the virus will not be detected until symptoms start, anything from 2-21 days after infection. They are also going to ask questions about whether people have been to dangerous areas or been in contact with infected people. Do they really imagine everyone coming all the way to the UK from that part of the world is going to tell the truth and jeopardise their chance of entry?

We want effective action not pointless gestures so the government can claim they are doing something. Stop anyone who is not a British citizen from coming here!

Ebola again

Some think that the Ebola scare is overblown, that it won't be a problem outside Africa where there is poverty and poor hygeine. We disagree. Just because the UK does not have the obvious problem of sewage running down the street, that does not mean there is no potential to spread this disease as this link indicates:

Faecal bacteria are present on 26% of hands in the UK, 14% of banknotes and 10% of credit cards, according to new research carried out by hygiene experts from Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL) and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). ... Findings suggest 11% of our hands are so "grossly contaminated" they are carrying as many germs as a dirty toilet bowl. ... The study of bank notes and credit cards suggest only 39% of people wash their hands before tucking into some food.

Basic maths tells us that another factor in potential spread is population density and you do not get much more crowded than London where many Africans live. Ebola can survive for a few hours on dry surfaces. If you hold the rail on a tube train that has been grasped by an infectious person and then go and eat a sandwich, the risk may be low but is it non-existent? So far, we have a case of transmission in Spain to a nurse who would have been using all precautions and a case in the US of a sheriff who spent 30 minutes in an infected man's house and supposedly had no physical contact with the man or his bodily fluids.

Then there are the beliefs and practices that are factors in this spread which Africans bring with them to the UK. Beliefs that illness is due to witchcraft or can be cured by laying on of hands might delay reporting of an infection and spread it further among those communities before the authorities are aware of it.

It is high time European governments did everything possible to stop travel from affected areas by stopping flights except those carrying properly checked aid workers. If the threat is not overblown this could save lives and money. If it is pure hysteria, let's be honest, stopping travel from the likes of Sierra Leone or Liberia is not exactly going to have any significant downsides. Actually, Ebola hysteria sounds ike a damn good excuse.

Links:

Ebola outbreak: Witchcraft hampering treatment

Stop Laying Hands on People to Cure Ebola, Clergy Pleads

WAD

Seasonal Affective Disorder is a well known condition but is there a Weekly Affective Disorder? Over and over again it keeps happening. Mondays and Tuesdays we feel ok. Wednesdays to Saturdays we go progressively down, getting more and more ratty and by Friday evening, if we had a gun, there would be a Hungerford style massacre round here. Saturday evening we feel nearly suicidal. Sunday mornng we feel tired but get progressively better as the day passes and come Sunday evening we feel ok again.

Perhaps we should start a WAD club but we might get people with FAD, MAD, SAD, YAD or DAD turning up. Don't want those twits turning up, silly f*ers should pull themselves together!

Hang on

Couldn't sleep last night and the solution came to me. Why do I feel lousier as the weekdays go by and then pick up towards the end of the weekend? Vodka! All we have to do is drink all week instead of just weekends. LOFVAF Sorted.

Ho hum

Not into gardening and the missus's expensive wooden greenhouse is basically just my little private drinking club nowadays. Sitting there today trying to cheer ourselves up with the last of our Turkish fags and some heavy rock music. No vodka unfortunately, the village shop was closed and there was a "Police do not cross" ribbon across it. Heard some bastards has broken into a series of local shops last night and nicked all the fags. Bastards.

Really ought to get round to clearing the algae off the glass but find the artwork of the slugs and other little creatures who feed on it rather interesting. Look at this bit, it clearly depicts a couple of dragons fighting while other dragons and a big spider look on. Brilliant little artists! Better than Tracey Emin's crap anyway.

Talking of prophets

We are so wise. It is no wonder we have the same birthday as Nostrodamus.

Just yesterday, on an Ebola thread on CUK we pointed out the similarity to the Dustin Hoffman film Outbreak in which an Ebola-like disease spreads to a US town and mutates into a much more infectious airborne form. Today a UN chief has warned that Ebola could mutate into a much more infectious airborne form.

Talking of prophets 2

Several years ago we also said it would be unwise to open the door to the Gurkhas. While not disputing their qualities as soldiers, we argued that a) Ex soldiers who have suffered the stresses of combat do not make good citizens and b) That we would be opening the door to many others from yet another poor low-performance nation. We also got some flack for a similar post on CUK. Yet today we see the reality for Aldershot of that idiot Lumley's posing. Lack of funding for many elderly Nepalese, health centres blocked up, overcrowded Nepalese areas and fear of Nepalese youths on the streets.

While there is no suggestion they are a major problem and the Gurkhas themselves are still rightly held in high regard it is difficult to see this as a positive for the UK and these are early days. Look at the scale of trafficing of Nepalese women, mostly to India so far, and then at the scale of trafficking and illegal immigration to the UK among other migrant populations who have been here much longer. Look too at the high crime levels in that country. Is it really likely that the problems of such a desperately poor nation will never affect the UK? People love to blame migrant/minority crime on exclusion but look at the facts and problems in any community here tend to reflect those in their countries of origin. And what will happen if the civil unrest and political uncertainy that never quite goes away in Nepal turns into something more widespread and the pressure to leave rises?

There was never a reason to open our doors when Gurkhas' pensions would have provided a good standard of living in their home country. It is a pity that policy is always based on emotion and never on fact and common sense.

Links:

The Gurkhas in Aldershot: Little Nepal

Aldershot: the town turning away the Gurkhas

Trafficking of females from Nepal

Human trafficking to UK rising

Crime and political unrest in Nepal

Excellent!

Jeremy Clarkson (my beloved prophet) is supposedly taking the piss out of Argentina. Good for you JC! (are his initials really a mere coincidence or is he the new Messiah?)

It is another example of the curious double standards that prevail today. Anyone who cites relatively recent, pre WW2, history, to defend a white British UK is called racist, told that we must take account of the ethnic population that makes up part of today's UK. Actually, I entirely agree with that. While we should not go on repeating past mistakes, creating conflicts and tensions by taking in those who do not succeed or who reject British values, you cannot turn back history. It is in everyones' interest that British citizens, regardless of ethnicity, should be fully part of our society, that we try and create a Britain where everyone is of equal value and eliminate the differences that exist.

And yet some argue we are supposed to use disputed events of nearly 200 years ago to reject self determination by the Falklands Islanders, most of whose ancestry goes way back to that time. The accusations of colonialism are particularly bizarre coming from Argentina, a country formed by Spanish colonials, most of whom arrived in that region no earlier than the ancestors of the Falkland Islanders.

I particularly liked a comment on that Express article:

I rather like Clarkson for saying what he thinks. He reminds me of myself and how the UK used to be before all these tree hugging leftie dainty flowers came about. Now the country is no longer known for being the Bulldog breed,.......more like the pink Poodle shampoo race. Its no wonder we are being crushed from both the inside and out. The ones who are prepared to speak out are being over shadowed by don't make a fuss wimps.

Stuff it to the lefty, debt defaulting (yet again) twats JC!

Good for you truckers!

The BBC TV news for Kent reports that truckers plan to blockade the port of Dover in protest against the flood of illegal immigrants from Calais. Who can blame them when some have been threatened and attacked? When they get fined up to £2000 a time for each of these parasites that sneaks onto a truck when they stop at a traffic light or to refuel? When their lorries are damaged by the break ins? When the cargo, including foodstuffs, can be written off by migrants pissing and crapping on it?

It is not just truck drivers whose lives and livelihoods are at risk, there has been news of illegals escaping onto motorways or falling from beneath lorries. How long before one of them causes a serious pile up? We have also had recent news of them sneaking onto private vehicles. How long before an ordinary driver gets attacked for trying to get one them to leave? Life must be awful for the people in Calais too. This has to be stopped.

One of the truckers interviewed asked rhetorically why they come here and do not stay in Belgium, France or Germany before saying "We all know why" and he is right. Anyone who thinks that the idea that we too readily grant asylum or mollycoddle these people is a Daily Mail invention should check the figures. Many of these people are Eritreans and over 82% of Eritreans applying were granted asylum or concessionary leave to remain in 2012. Note that that is not the percentage actually remaining in the UK as, even when people do fail to gain asylum under our lax systems, they have only a 13% chance of being removed. As for their usefulness, 80% of Eritreans in Lambeth live in social housing, social housing that should be going to our own people. Another major group, from Somalia, is even more hopeless. Just 1 in 10 is in full time work.

While France and other nations can be criticised for trying to offload the situation onto us by letting them through their own borders, while the stupid EU Schengen agreement can be blamed for making border controls much more difficult, the main fault lies with our shitty governments for making the UK far too attractive.

We have no obligation under the Geneva covention to offer asylum to anyone who comes from a safe country, so why is the government not making it absolutely clear, with a public statement from a government minister, with leaflets and posters in various languages in Calais, that nobody from there will be granted asylum under any circumstances? That any illegals from another EU country will be immediately deported from the UK without further process?


Links:

Migrants make Calais a war zone for lorry drivers en route to Britain. Note: missing top image! Scroll down.

Police say they are struggling to contain violence and crime by illegal immigrants encamped in and around the French port

Illegal immigrant suspects run from lorry on M25

Illegal immigrant stowed away under camper van

Asylum decisions by nationality

Only 13% of failed asylum seekers deported

Eritreans in Lambeth

Somalis fare much worse than other immigrants

Ah! fuck it!

Back from holiday in Turkey.

Not really my idea of a great holiday, long delay in outgoing flight, hotels everywhere, packed beaches, piles of litter all over the place, woken up at 5.30 every morning by f* call to prayer from loudspeakers at the nearby f* Mosque. Bet if I went to a local Muslim area here and blared out atheist slogans from loudspeakers on my van at 5.30 I'd get arrested and accused of hate crime for offending their bloody religious sensibilities!

On the other hand, there were some nice days, boat trips, swimming, ancient ruins and a few wanders in the spectacular coastal mountains that were great once you got past the piles of rubbish!. Hotel was ok too, apart from its proximity to the f* mosque, good pool, nice staff, huge all inclusive vodkas at the bar and loud dancy music in the evening. Needless to say, we at bloggoth set it all bopping with our wild dancing and got joined by a couple of nice Russian ladies. And young Turkish men! Blokes dancing together, as in Greece, is not gay apparently.

Ah! fuck it 2!

Holiday was just too much time with the very nice but so bland religious lady. Irritated me to f*. I'm used to serious, daft, irreverent and sometimes crude conversations with those I know. I can only take so much "Ooh! Look at that sunset! Isn't it beautiful? Isn't it? Eh?" without injecting my total irritation into the "Yeh! Lovely!" in response to about the fifth "Eh?". I have seen a sunset about 5000 times before you know missus!

Was wondering how to end it or reduce the contact when we met up last night. In the end, after the 3rd long wait while she exchanged inconsequential pleasantries with acquaintances or passing strangers I got fed up and walked off.

Fuck it! Where do you find a proper woman at my age?

PS Fuck it!

Ah! fuck it 3!

Just back from the holiday and had to go to yet another family funeral.

Quite

Saw this in a comment a few weeks back. Apparently a quote of one Jam Zama on Fox news.

The Muslims are not happy!.........
They're not happy in Gaza.
They're not happy in Egypt.
They're not happy in Libya.
They're not happy in Morocco.
They're not happy in Iran.
They're not happy in Iraq.
They're not happy in Yemen.
They're not happy in Afghanistan.
They're not happy in Pakistan.
They're not happy in Syria.
They're not happy in Lebanon.
So, where are they happy?
They're happy in Australia.
They're happy in England.
They're happy in France.
They're happy in Italy.
They're happy in Germany.
They're happy in Sweden.
They're happy in the USA.
They're happy in Norway.
They're happy in Holland.
They're happy in Denmark.
They’re happy in Canada.
Basically, they're happy in every non muslim country and unhappy in every country that is muslim!
And who do they blame?
Not Islam.
Not their leadership.
Not themselves.
THEY BLAME THE COUNTRIES THEY ARE HAPPY IN! And then; They want to change those countries to be like the shi*hole country they came from....WHERE THEY WERE UNHAPPY IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Rather sums it up. When there is so little enjoyment in life, when not just the admittedly undesirable western excesses of casual sex and overdrinking are taboo but also the normal and harmless human pleasures, like dancing, romance, loving physical relationships, real art and music are banned, when their education sometimes teaches disdain for those of other religions, how can people ever be warm human beings with normal feelings for others? And how can an ethos that discourages independent thinking on major issues of life not impact flexibility of thinking in other areas? Is it any wonder that the economies of Muslim countries lag those of their non Muslim neighbours unless thay have vast oil wealth, extracted mainly using Western technology?

In a few millenia, when Islam has moderated or died as all irrational beliefs eventually do, when they can look back with detachment, historians will see it for what it is. One of the most malignant millstones that humanity has ever placed around its own neck.


Pakistan - Public schools teach intolerance towards religious minorities: a U.S. Report

Modern perspectives

Modern life links things together have no relationship whatever. Was swapping a lot of utility payments to a new bank account this morning and, from that perspective, electricity supply, water supply, satellite TV, phone bills and sewage disposal are all the same, just a lot of monthly payments in a bank statement.

Just had a huge thunder storm and unplugged the phone line and TV arial to avoid any damage to equipment by a lighting strike. Isn't a good thing that Thor didn't spend his morning sorting out utility payments and get temporarily confused by the similarity?

Who reads it anyway?

Non existent readers of bloggoth who have noted the lack of bollux here should know it was all due to a technicality. There was lots of new stuff on bloggoth, all that was missing was the will to upload it. It was all here in TextPad on my PC, all you had to do was fly to xoggoth Towers in the UK and ask for a free viewing. Granted, it all seemed very dull but, when you are down in the pit we are at the moment, we find absolutely anything very dull, so cannot really judge. Found a previous undiscovered manuscript of a musical colloboration between Shakespeare and Mozart behind the dishwasher last week and threw it away because it was so tedious.

But that doesn't matter anymore. Looked up a thing on depression and it said keep doing the things you used to like doing even though they don't interest you, so bloggoth, for the time being, is purely a therapeutic outlet.

PS Actually I'd have charged you $59397484899785195 and 52 dimes, whatever they are

PPS And the bloggoth 3 Rs, Rude, Rant and Rubbish will be 2 Rs as we are ditching Rant for the moment. Worrying about things we can't change is too fekking depressing at the moment. Actually that's stressful for everyone at the best of times: Study finds news is stressing people out

Who reads it anyway 2?

Damn woman. Shoulda called it off given how I felt but went for a trip to the beach last week with the nice religious lady and I was so bad tempered on the drive down there I'm pretty sure she's gonna chuck me. The hug, phone calls, emails have all changed. I'm just a damned atheist but I would not hold an off day against a friend. Christian forgiveness eh? Oh well, screw her, hopefully I can find a non religious replacement with the rare condition of Culusliberalis, an abnormal generosity in donation of the rear passage.

Bash

Another silly little coincidence. Took these pictures in the local woods a few days ago. A huge dead pine tree trunk had fallen right across the public footpath because the trunk has rotted through. Would have been a bit unlucky (or should that be lucky?) if somebody had been walking there at the time. Turned on the TV this morning to see news and there was an old episode of 'Allo 'Allo on Gold. The bloke who played Rene was seriously injured when a tree fell on his car. Does 'appen. Never to the right people unfortunately.

Overstated but not my fault!

Non-existent readers will be aware that we are a famous author and have claimed to have made a fortune (£7) from sales of our fantastic stories on Amazon. Today we got a remittance advice and cheque from them which we do not understand at all. Each sale was supposed to be for the equivalent of one dollar with a fixed fee but there are varying amounts with some sales netting as little as 26p. Sure the dollar/pound exchange rate has not fluctuated that much!

We must therefore apologise for overstating our fame, the massive fortune we have earned so far is £4.16. We must remember to include it on our tax return.

Peddling the myth

In our idiot UK, the "anti-racists" love to seize on excuses to criticise the white British. Recent news that poor white British children (not to be confused with white British children in general as some are doing) are now the worst performers in our schools has attracted the usual comments about migrants caring more about their children, being less welfare dependent etc etc.

Isn't it very strange how nobody mentions the obvious main reason, provided by the government's own statistics, that enormous amounts of money have been spent on improving schools in area of high ethnicity while our own children have been ignored? When we are spending under £4000 per pupil in largely white Knowlsley in Merseyside and around £8000 in high ethnic areas like Tower Hamlets and Hackney what do they F* expect?

Peddling the myth 2

To those of us who ever bother to check, there are some disturbing realities about Eastern Europe including higher alcohol consumption than ours, fundamentalist Catholicism, high levels of anti-semitism and a strong profile for far right groups that make our BNP look moderate. This news of an unprovoked attack by a Polish neo-Nazi group does not come as any great surprise to we at bloggoth.

Strange how the "anti-racists" always seem to think that only the white British ever have any faults. It never seems to occur to them that all men are equally flawed and that every nation has their share of major problems. They never look at the realities of the world or at our own history and draw the obvious conclusion that the poorer a nation is, the more crime, religious conservatism, social problems and unnaceptable attitudes and practices it tends to have. They never learn from the consequences of past migrations either. Immigration from some Commonwealth nations since 1950 has provided us with low performing groups who are more likely to need welfare or social housing, commit more crime, have worse health and have landed us with an ongoing terrorist threat and riots that we never needed to have.

Will those from some Eastern European nations be any better once we have several years of statistics to go on? One would hope so but one thing is certain, that attack in Tottenham will not be the last.

So where is the racism?

In our idiot UK all valid objections to immigration, like this one, are cast as racism. There is nothing in the banners or in any comment that is racist, that mentions this chap's complexion or origin, and yet we get the usual guff about racism based on skin colour etc. Cut to the basic, relevant point. WTF are we doing taking in someone who is not an asylum seeker, who is not stated to have made a previous high contribution to UK taxes (sure the BBC article would mention it if he had) and who needs social housing? The only economic migrants we should be taking in are the ones who will make a well above average net positive contribution to the UK. No migrant should receive social housing or other significant benefit without a significant record of contributions to the state. People who have been on the housing list for years and find themselves pushed down it by migrants who have contributed little or nothing have every right to feel aggrieved.

I once would have said that I don't agree with targetting individuals and that any protest should have been directed at our governments but as our governments will not listen I am not so sure any more. Why should adults who are free to make their own decisions and choose to take advantage of our lax systems at the expense of those who pay for them expect not to receive any criticism?

Maybe if we were a lot less tolerant of the parasites we would get fewer of them.

The arsehole is partly right

The bastard Blair is defending his idiot decisions again.

His assertion that his actions didn't cause the current Iraq crisis are probably correct. If Saddam or his successor had been around today he would probably have been targetted by Islamists just as the Iraqi government is being targetted now. Given the nature of Islamism and the tribal nature of the Arab world, the mistakes of those like Blair probably make very little difference in the long run. "All" Blair and Bush did was waste the lives of our soldiers and billions of taxpayers' money.

For the same reasons, there is not the slightest point in us getting involved now as he suggests. How can we help the moderate (by Muslim standards) rebels against Assad without also benefiting the extreme Islamists? If we help put the former into power, how long before they are targeted by the latter just as the Iraq government is being targetted now?

Probably nothing effective we can do but wait a few hundred years until, hopefully, Islam moderates as Christianity has done. In the meantime we should ensure, as far as possible, that we keep this fuck awful creed out of own countries and stop any of its tenets, except those that are harmless or compatible with our own, being taught. It's good to see that Camoron and others are abandoning their politically correct silence on this issue. What will actually be done is not clear but it's a necessary start.

A bit more recognition of some uncomfortable realities with respect to some other ethnic/migrant groups would not come amiss either. WTF is the point of the government gathering stats on crime, educational acheivement, health, unemployment, welfare and social housing if it does not act on them and ensure that all immigrants really are as beneficial as some claim they are?

Suspicious devices

The bomb squad had to be deployed when relatives of a deceased old bloke found a suspicious device in his shed.

Good for him. Whatever happened to the good old days when we could make explosives and guns just for the fun of it without being labelled terrorists? Used to make lots of bombs out of sugar and Sodium Chlorate, which you could buy at any garden centre. For a gun you just needed a bit of steel piping, a battery, a switch and a bit of nichrome wire from an old iron. Wouldn't work now, chlorate is 50% fire retardents.

Perhaps if we had not been stupid enough to import groups prone to terrorism we might still be able to have a bit of harmless fun.

Whatever happened to Time and Motion Studies?

In the 1st year of our degree we did a business studies course and Time and Motion Studies appeared to be a big thing. The idea was that experts studied business methods or manufacturing processes and worked out the most efficient way of performing them, avoiding any time wasting.

Never hear anything about it recently, maybe expecting anyone to work efficiently is now a gross violation of human rights. It can only be a matter of time before the EU decides that incompetence and laziness is a disability and companies will be obliged to take on people who are totally unsuited to the job, fail interviews or never bother to turn up to them.

We seem to be acheiving very little recently and decided to do some Time and Motion studies on our everyday tasks and try and force ourself to be more efficient. This morning we took on a fairly small job of moving a water butt divertor on the downpipe of the conservatory as the replacement butt is a different height. Not much to it, should have taken about 20 minutes but it took about an hour and a half. Another reason nobody mentions time and motion studies is because it is among the most tedious subjects going so we won't bore the non-existent readers by presenting our 63 page report complete with numerous bar charts and a detailed analysis but the basics are summarised here:

Might be a couple of minor mispellings there, but we are not quite sure. Please come back in an hour or two when we have found our glasses.

A solution to all mankind's ills

Pretty often these days we can't sleep at night, feel tired and depressed all day and suffer from constant catarrh. We know it isn't hay fever as we had it during the winter too. Yet today we felt pretty good, alive and lively and had not a trace of a sniffle. Last night, and the last two times we slept well had something in common, we had scoffed a Sainsbury's Apple Strudel with lots of cream before going to bed.

It's a miracle cure! Trouble is, if we resort to that cure every night, will we end up too fat to get out of bed at all?

This week's post we could not be arsed to write ourselves

We have said it before but it's good to see a professor is saying the same thing. Let us hope our ridiculous governments wake up to the realities of encouraging multiculturalism before the UK ends up as the tribal society we thought we had left behind 1000 years ago.

Sir Paul Collier, a professor of development economics at Oxford University, has produced a model that shows that it inevitably becomes a self-reinforcing process: each diaspora community gets ever more entrenched in reproducing the values of the society from which the migrants to it come, which in turn attracts more migrants from that society to it, which then ensures that it is less integrated with the host society – and more attractive to the immigrants from the traditional society in Pakistan, India or wherever.

Professor Collier thinks that unless the state takes very definite steps to stop this process happening, it will continue more or less indefinitely, with the result that migrant communities become ever more alienated and remote from the society to which they are supposed to adapt. That leads directly to the nightmare scenario: a Britain made up of mutually antagonistic “monocultures” that do not trust each other, do not work together and do not share the values of secular democracy, freedom of conscience and the equality of both sexes before the law.

White racism is not the biggest obstacle to integration: the highest levels of segregation anywhere in Britain are those recorded between Indians and Pakistanis in towns in the north of England. The segregation between African-Caribbeans and Asians is markedly higher than the degree of segregation between whites and African-Caribbeans. And it seems to be getting worse, not better. Immigrant communities are getting more isolated, less integrated and more locked into their own traditional values.

Sensible chap

The Guardian reports on Michael Gove's views on Islamism:

"Nowhere has moral clarity been more lacking in British state policy over the last ten to fifteen years than in our approach to the Islamist threat," begins chapter eight, before detailing his belief that "a sizeable minority" of Britain's 1.8 million Muslims hold "rejectionist Islamist views" which he compares to the threat posed by Nazism and Communism.

F* Cats!

The only animal I loath (apart from people) is f* cats!

Looking at a local volunteering site and selected interests as Animals/All activities. Almost all it brought up was page after page of opportunities with Cats Protection. This organisation must have more people on its staff than Tescos! I tried Education and Literacy and 3 out of 8 opportunities there were for Cats Protection too. I thought "Environment and Conservation" would be free of them, given the adverse impact of domestic cats on our wildlife but no, they are there too looking for administrators. Searched for "website" and 1 of the 3 was for the Cats Protection website.

There are more vacancies caring for f* cats than there are caring for the elderly! What the hell do people see in the creepy little bastards?

PS No I wasn't looking for "activities" with lady pigs, how dare you!

PPS Mmmmmmmm!

That sensible lefty again

Polly Toynbee, that "liberal lefty "that us righties are supposed to loath, has been talking sense in The Guardian again.

The Muslim 'Trojan Horse' schools frenzy hides a need for integration Children should be taught about religion, not have one imposed on them. That a third of state schools in the UK are faith schools is a disaster.
....
The state's duty is to protect children and to see they get a good education to fit them for life. It makes no difference whether they are Muslims or Wee Frees, Plymouth Brethren or Roman Catholics, children have a right to an education free from imposed beliefs, and be free to choose their own path.
....
What is needed is socially and religiously integrated education. All children should be taught religious education, learning about all religions. But what serious programme of sex education or prevention of homophobic bullying can there be in schools where most teachers adhere to ancient texts that punish gays? It's hard to complain of some of the teachings in the Qur'an when Gove sends a Bible to every school, filled with the most extreme and bizarre prohibitions.

Quite. Those who do not live in PC ignorance will know that Christian schools do not even begin to compare in terms of the frequency or nature of extremism that is common in Muslim schools but that does not really matter. Stop the teaching of dogma in all schools and it all stops and nobody can complain of discrimination. Freedom to teach stigmatisation and exclusion of others for totally irrational reasons is not a freedom that we should respect. The nonsense of religion is a millstone around the necks of humanity and is is time we progressed beyond it.

Low skilled immigration is not a positive, it is taking us backwards

In my younger days DIY car repair magazines, like Popular Mechanics, sold lots of copies and many people did their own servicing, repairs and modifications because it was reasonably easy. Almost nobody fixes their own cars anymore, the compact designs, complex electronic control systems and sensitive emission controls make it far too difficult. On the other hand, cars are vastly more reliable, economical and less polluting than they used to be, so the changes have certainly not been a bad thing.

That is just one example of the way things change as a result of progress. Often we get nostalgic for the way things used to be. Wasn't it nice when every town and many villages had their own butchers, bakers and greengrocers? Unfortunately in the modern world, when almost everyone has a car, when large out of town stores offer economy of scale, when shopping malls concentrate a range of stores in one place with convenient parking, when goods can be ordered online and delivered to your door, it does not make commercial sense anymore.

That is why articles like this claiming that an influx of immigrants has saved our high streets make no sense whatever. Leaving aside the question of how Polish food stores or other businesses that simply cater for increased demands caused by migrants are of any benefit to the native British, all that is happening is that those from less developed nations are stymying progress and taking our local economies backwards in line with their own. Another example we see routinely is how the automated car wash that your local garage has invested a lot of money in is now standing unused because Eastern Europeans hang around supermarket and garden centre car parks providing car washes with buckets and sponges.

We have heard before how cheap immigrants were supposed to save our economy but they never did. In the 60s and 70s our textile industry in Lancashire took in large numbers of cheap workers from South Asia but it was entirely predictable that the industry folded anyway. Low wages by UK standards could never allow the UK to compete with countries where wages were even lower and where basic workers' rights and even proper safety standards were often non existent. The Lancashire industry is now beginning to make a comeback by diversifying and concentrating on innovation and quality as it should have done back then.

We cannot afford to have our economy governed by nostalgia about how things used to be, we need to embrace changes that make economic sense in a market economy. The UK cannot compete with poorer countries using cheap imported labour, it needs to grow by innovation and technology.

Women in my life

Apart from my nice religious lady, I have the regular company of another bird in my life and she's lovely. No, I haven't bonked her because she really is a bird, a female Blackbird to be precise. Whenever I go out, she is there waiting for her bird seed and stands a few inches away as I put it out. Even when she has had her fill she often hangs around me. I sit on the garden seat and she perches on the trellis next to it and we exchange little wip noises.

Looking at her photo, she does look a bit sad. Do you get sad loners in the animal kingdom? Because that it what she seems to be. Shows no signs of having a mate or a nest and rarely strays from a small area of my garden, rarely flies either. I call her Betty. Don't worry Betty, me and Mr P will keep you company. Do you like vodka?

Worrying

A very short snatch in a BBC news item reminded me of this. Wow! Why do we keep remembering things recently? (As long as they are not names of celebrities obviously)

Camoron is right

It isn't saying much but we are increasingly coming to the view that Camoron is one of the most sensible PMs we have had in my lifetime. What a shame the Tories were obliged to be in a coalition with the Illiberal Despots.

He has said that people should not be allowed to erase their history from the internet unless it is factually innacurate. In principle, leaving aside the difficulty of proving if it is or not in some cases, he is quite right. Our private lives should be private but if we are seeking a loan or an investment in our business, running for public office, buying goods or services on credit, looking for a job, renting a flat, getting married, seeking a partner on a dating site or interacting with others in any of the numerous ways that affect them, those others should have a right to know what they are letting themselves in for.

A personal example. We recently had a cold call about an investment opportunity that looked too good to be true but checked it out anyway. It did not appear to be a fraud and had been endorsed by a fairly well known presenter but, digging a bit deeper, we found that the director who started the scheme had been involved in a previous scheme that had lost a lot of money for his clients. Should I, and many others probably, really not be able to find that out?

This ruling is yet another bit of nonsense from the European court of rights based on the irrational idea that one person's rights should be allowed to override everyone else's.

PS. And one of the directors was Nigerian but it would be racist (AKA realistic and sensible) to take that into account.

Product variety

Do you ever wonder if we really need so many different products? What exactly is the difference between a bathroom surface cleaner and a kitchen surface cleaner? They clean the same type of surface, such as formica, tile or PVC and they are all supposed to kill 99% of germs. Is a bit of chlorine really fussy about what germs it kills? Can't help feeling it's all just a ruse by the manufacturers to make us spend more money. It's the same with a lot of other things. I bet there isn't an ounce of difference between male and female deodorants.







PS Did you spot this week's deliberate error? Yes, no finger on the nozzle but the can is spraying. Yes, it was deliberate! I am just trying to keep the non-existent readers on their toes.

Aaaaaaaaaaah

Watching old Simpsons while eating dinner. Another sad and long forgotten song.

The merits of real nationalism

As is normal for leftists, those who wrongly equate Nationalism with Nazism or think that nationalistic governments are likely to set out to conquer others are plain ignorant. Since 1950, very few wars, conflicts and major tensions have pitted rival nations against each other as this list shows. Exactly the same is true today. We live in a world of organisations like the UN and NATO and, more importantly, large populations and international trade where old style national conflicts are much more difficult. Few nations on their own have all the resources to support their own economies in the face of trade sanctions.

The worst conflicts in the period have been ideological, pitting a large block of nations against another, but the great majority have been civil wars or tribal conflicts within nations. When nations have gone to war, it has rarely been a simple case of one nation's citizens versus another but rather a case of opposing ethnic groups in either nation, with one nation intervening on the side of what it regards as it's own people. In other words, as in Syria, Nigeria, Somalia, Egypt, Pakistan, Sudan, Iraq, Ukraine and the CAR today, it is ethnic, tribal and religious divisions, not national rivalries, that cause most conflicts.

So far, they are small beer compared to those but look at tensions closer to home. Terrorist attacks in England since 2001, the major riots since 1980. the current stories about attempted Islamic takeovers in many schools. These are tensions which, with more nationalist policies, we might never have had and they have increased racism, not reduced it. We would have more respect and tolerance for those of different ethnicity if a significant minority were not a threat or a burden to us.

The logical conclusion is that by breaking down national barriers, by allowing supra national bodies like the EU to impose laws on sovereign nations that ignore their interests, by encouraging mass immigration without proper controls and without requiring integration, we are likely to be creating a much less peaceful world.

Eventually?

We happen to live right next to the Greenwich Meridian, 0' degrees longitude, where East meets West. Yesterday we went rambling on a footpath which is part of the Greenwich Meridian Trail. If we keep on murdering our sense of national identity, importing problems and tensions from other nations, where will it end? And, if the old East vs West tensions rise again, will they be much closer to home?

Jogging down a footpath that is the new demarcation line between hostile political blocks may be interesting but we would prefer just to look at the Bluebells.

Lenny Henry

Used to like the bloke but our opinion has just nosedived after reading details of this campaign.

The principle of trying to bring the ethnic British into our society and economy, especially the lowest performers, is something we should all support out of pure self interest because anything else is going to deliver yet more decades or riots and terrorism. However, the sort of thing he proposes is just an inverted racism that favours one group over another purely by reason of skin colour, disproportionately impacts the white majority and will simply raise resentment. Look at his actual words here:

Henry contrasted pictures of the casts of US and UK dramas such as Gray's Anatomy and the mostly white Channel 4 series Southcliffe and ITV's Broadchurch, saying you "rarely see a black face" in high-end British dramas and comedies such as ITV's Downton Abbey.

That is plain stupid. How can a British period drama show an ethnic face, except rarely, and be remotely accurate or believable? It's not just that he mistakenly chose a poor example, you could never have blacks or other minorities significantly represented in any realistic British-based drama that did not cover the last six decades without making it totally unbelievable.You could not have a historical program about life in Britain that did not cover the same period without changing history. Or an up to date crime drama set in Dorset that was not almost entirely white for that matter. Are we expected to give up all interest in our own culture and history or accept ludicrous distortions for the sake of recent migrants?

They should be properly represented in other programs, other parts of the BBC or in the economy generally but proper representation should take the truly non racist form of ensuring that all applicants are considered impartially on their merits. What if there are not sufficient suitable BME applicants for any particular job? Considering that we are not actually comparing like with like and that some BME groups tend to have fewer GCSE passes and other qualifications, that is bound to happen sometimes. Will better qualified white chaps be passed over in favour of the BME applicant? What resentment will that justifiably raise and will it really help to reduce racism in the UK? And, while equality generally may be desirable, does that really mean that we should have quotas for every single position, given the different strengths and preferences among different cultures? There are many blacks in the legal and medical professions but, if companies had to recruit the proper quota of black engineers or computer programmers, vacancies would be unfilled for a long time.

In a few cases, in the police perhaps when there is a need to reach out to minority communities, being of ethnic origin can be valuable in itself but in most cases quotas are a racist nonsense. Whites are the subject of racism too, (how many white waiters have YOU ever seen in an Indian or Chinese restaurant?) but there is no reason why they alone should be subjected to it by law. Not that we are against the idea of people getting what they pay for. We already have a BBC Asian Network and if Henry wants true representation of blacks on TV we have no objection whatever to one or more black channels, staffed entirely by blacks if he likes, as long as it is financed entirely from black license fees or black taxpayers.

Provided we can have a white channel funded by whites obviously. Or is it too racist in our idiotic one sided multi-cultural Britain for the white British to have equality in anything?

REAL democracy

It would be great to have a properly proportional voting system and REAL democracy where all opinions, including extreme ones as long as they were not advocating violence, have weight in proportion to those who support them.

Why not let the BNP and no borders groups, the far left and the far right, the anarchists and extreme libertarians, the Marxists who want property ownership outlawed, the Shariah law supporters, the Green loonies who put the animal welfare above that of humans, the Ayne Rand elitists etc have an MP or two if they can muster the necessary support? There is not the remotest chance of any gaining power in the UK but there are two big advantages. If opinions could be freely expressed rather than hidden or shouted down, we could judge them according to their merits of otherwise. If the extremists had freedom of expression and their parties were allowed some influence they would not feel the need to support more moderate parties and damage their case.

If we exclude some and not others according to current thinking about what is acceptable, there is no true democracy, because extremists will support moderate laws that go a little way in their direction. A bit of basic maths. Removing just one end of a normal distribution shifts the mean in the opposite direction and this also impacts moderates close to the centre of the distribution.

Mmmmm! Damn!

Another generic message from dating site.

"I am a large lady.... "
Wahee! Yippee, snort, drool!
"I dont drink very much."
Aaagh! Damn! Darn it! Bollux!

Endangered species

We are always reading about endangered species and it is quite right, IMO, that we should do all we can to protect them. On the other hand, if I lived in some remote part of India and Tigers were eating my goats/children I might not be so keen. We are all hypocrites.

Even pro-nature Brits think killing some species such as rats or ants is ok but what if we developed some really effective poisons and some creatures we currently regard as pests become endangered too?


PS Actually, if Tigers were eating my children I would be even more in favour of them.

Hallelujah!

The non-existent readers of bloggoth might imagine that we would be among those objecting to Camoron's assertions that Britain is a Christian country but we aren't. While we cannot understand how intelligent people can believe in the irrational nonsense of the established religions, we really don't mind if they do, provided that they do not try and impose it on the rest of us. Cameron's words were just that, words, there were no suggestions of more Christianity-based laws.

If we had to have a religious state, one could probably not do better than one based on the teachings of the Church of England, probably among the most tolerant and least fundamentalist of all the world's faith. So there is also a big positive in Camoron's words, and of some other prominent Christians in recent months, in that it might make some of those tolerant Christians a bit more willing to speak out against intolerant and fundamentalist religion that has mainly been inflicted on the UK by mass immigration over many decades. The threat to our secular society is not just from Islam, although that is by far the worst, but from Evangelical Christianity from Africa and Catholic fundamentalist from Eastern Europe. Those "public figures" who lambasted Cameron for his views were not serving us atheists and agnostics, rather they were supporting the politically correct viewpoint that we should continue to turn a blind eye to the unnaceptable views and practices of minority religions.

So yes, keep it up Dave. It would be good if one day we could have a nation without religion, but that will only happen when the Flying Pig God takes to the air. In the meantime, if us non-believers and Christians like him can be united in rejecting these largely foreign beliefs that threaten our secular society, it will be a good thing. Of course, stopping even more pouring in might help too.

We repeat. Tolerance must be a two way street. Respect for the beliefs of those who do not have equal respect for ours is insane.

Foresight

Oh dear. Several years ago when I wrote this very short story I never imagined it could actually happen.

New condition

There does not appear to be a psychiatric condition called Hyperanthropomorphism but it exists 'cos we at bloggoth definitely have it. Lots of adults talk to their pets as if they are people but does anyone else treat every damn thing as if it human? *Note 1. We always park our van (Vannies) where it will have a nice or interesting view. We can't even throw away a sock with a hole in it without feeling guilty and sorry for the other sock, left all alone in the world without its mate. *Note 2

In return for some website work, our brother bought us a Garmin GPS unit for our wanderings so we can always see where we are on a map. Works well, once one masters all the complexities, but we could not possibly leave our little I-gotu GPS travel logger at home, it would be too sad, so will carry on taking that too. Trouble is, if I take them both, will they get on?

Note 1: Except some humans, treating loony lefties as human beings would be silly!

Note 2: But our Old Sock Dating Agency always matches them up with another widowed sock of vaguely similar colour or pattern. Saves spending a whole 3 quid on a new pair too!

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Value in a crap film

Went to see the film Noah last night. Gordon Bennet! What a totally rubbish film it is! On the other hand, maybe they did the best they could with a totally crap script. The next time you create a universe Yahweh, don't try and document things yourself, hire Stephen King to write your Genesis, he'll make a much more believable job of it.

The film did its best to make some things faintly more believable. You may have wondered how Noah managed to find the food required for two of every beast, including many with very restricted diets, for 40 days and nights without any of them eating each other or what the toilet arrangements were. The film tried to explain that with a 0.1% more believable story that Noah put them all to sleep. You may have wondered how any normal rain could cover the entire world, including mountains, unless it went on unrelentingly for many years but they explained that by saying it burst from the ground, slightly more believable given that the earth's mantle may hold as much water as the oceans, so we'll give it 0.5% Doesn't explain what stopped the water running back into the sea, resulting in an increase in the oceans' average depth that would be nowhere near enough to submerge all the land*. You may have wondered how one man and his family could possibly build a 41,000 M3 vessel complete with suitable storage for about 60,000 land-dwelling vertebrates and 1m invertebrates. The film explained that by giving them help from some giant rock-covered fallen angels. That is pretty credible, by the standards of the bible that is, so we'll give it 5%

Too many loose ends still unaddressed. If only man had sinned why could not an almighty god destroy them only, rather than all land-dwelling life? A plague or two should have been simple enough. Would all the unrescued land plants have survived? If there was just one of every beast, including man, wouldn't a proportion of them have died of natural causes before reproducing? What did all the carnivores eat in the months before any offspring appeared? How could every species have repopulated the earth from two individuals without a host of genetic defects appearing? And, if the flood really encompassed more than a very small area of the earth, how on earth did all the animals far away or over the sea ever manage to get there in the time available? The film really could have covered that point, shown god handing out plane tickets or something.

The only way genesis can possibly be literally correct is if it is describing some alternative universe. The more plausible explanation, as with all "holy texts", is that it was written by a man with only the limited knowledge of the time and not one iota of divine guidance.

The value of the film? Well, it might make a few of the idiots who believe in the literal truth of these things examine just how unrealistic their beliefs are.

PS By few we mean very, very, very, very, very, very few. We are not that naive about human stupidity.

*Average ocean depth is 4,267m and covers 76% of Earth's surface. There are more than 100 mountains with heights of over 7,200 metres.

Real non racism is assuming everyone is as crap as everyone else

Too many liberals fall into a well of contradiction. They insist that all people are equal, regardless of origin, but then imagine that others have none of the flaws that we do.

They denounce UKIP or the far right but fail to realise that many migrants will have equally strong or racist views. They say we should not act in our selfish interests to protect British culture but fail to realise that many migrants will equally act in the interests of their own people and their own culture and will not give a damn about what happens to ours. They insist that asylum seekers are all genuine despite the fact that many of us would also resort to invention as they do to avoid living in appalling conditions.

If you want to look at immigration from a truly non racist viewpoint, start with a real un-racist attitude, that all people have the same faults.

Then look at what has happened and at what is happening today around the world when people of disparate cultures are thrust into proximity, when idealistic aims are pursued too quickly and the legitimate concerns of ordinary people are treated with contempt.

Rhythm of the falling rain

This song popped into my head the other day. Won't go obviously but it could be worse.

Satanism

Obviously we at bloggoth much prefer the orgies/kissing goat's bottoms/inflicting evil upon the world variety but there is another version of Satanism with a very different basis. It views Satan not as the opponent of god but as his agent, a lesser being who has been appointed by him to deal with mankind on a day to day basis. Does any of this look evil? Tenets 3, 4 and 5 in particular are a great improvement over attitudes common to most established religions.

The mission of The Satanic Temple is to encourage benevolence and empathy among all people. In addition, we embrace practical common sense and justice. As Satanists we all should be guided by our conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by our individual wills. We believe that this is the hope of all mankind and the highest aspiration of humanity.

There are seven fundamental tenets.

1.One should strive to act with compassion and empathy towards all creatures in accordance with reason.
2.The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
3.One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
4.The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forego your own.
5.Beliefs should conform to our best scientific understanding of the world. We should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit our beliefs.
6.People are fallible. If we make a mistake, we should do our best to rectify it and resolve any harm that may have been caused.
7.Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

Pity they spoil it with by using a black/red colour scheme that we associate with conventional Sanism.

Darn it!

Now even Gordon Brownstuff is doing summit I mostly agree with by tackling forced marriage in Pakistan. The only bit I obviously don't agree with is that the UK should be paying for it - deduct it from the foreign aid we give that awful Islamic country please Gordon. The lot of women in Muslim countries is awful. The UK too. Just driving down a country road today and there was a group of girls hiking in horrible black Muslim veils in hot sunshine.

This is England? Trivial maybe but just the tip of the iceburg of what some women of Muslim or third world ethnic origins in the UK have to put up with. Anything other than total equality for women, letting them make their own decisions about their own lives, should be totally unnaceptable. The reluctance of our PC society to tackle these issues for fear of appearing racist may in reality be rather racist itself. Aren't ethnic minority women important enough to deserve a principle that white British women, in our society, take for granted? Males who don't accept it should have no damn right to be here.

Anyway, rant over. Getting back to Gordon Brownstuff. Him doing something sensible and decent is just not on! Hate is as necessary in a human life as love in our view. God and Satan, Ying and Yan, Sooty and Sweep and all that crap, it's about balance. By not hating Gordon Brown so much we are left with a big void in our lives that we must now fill by hating somebody else equally, but who? Not Ed Milliband or even Ed Balls, they're just annoying/pathetic.

Only one possible choice. Step up to the no 1 platform - Vince Cable. Undoubtably the biggest arrogant arsehole in politics today.

Come back

We must try and rev. up the imagination. Get back to our stories, cartoons and art. We are trying - one thing that should help is recording odd thoughts that might be useful. We looked at one of our many little notebooks the other day. It said "nuclear war just Wheatabix Sharon Osbourne"

Yeeees. Most helpful.

On faith and drink

Hail outside. Sitting here listening to Dean Martin.

The two dates were good and have another planned but can't imagine there'll be anything more to it than company for the occasional NT visit or countryside wander. She's a really nice lady but religious, thinks crystal healing can actual work (beyond the purely psychological effect) and does not accept that experience shapes human nature. Philosophy and religion, or lack of same, may not form the substance of most conversations but they do provide a basic foundation for attitudes to almost everything.

Got another date in the making. Sent the lady a message, got a reply and in her first sentence she mentions she likes Vodka! Forget all that crap in my first paragraph, she likes Vodka! I think I'm in love.

Update. Not heard from the vodka lady but never mind. Great day wandering the country with our original date. Sun shining and she's lovely company. Definitely helping to undepress me. In more libidinous days I would have found it impossible to have a very decent looking lady as a friend and not jumped on her but when you're a pensioner, maybe it can work. Who wants complications of sex and stuff at the mo. anyway?

Sex. How do you do that again? Forgotten. Think it involved spoons but our memory is not what it was.

Update 2. Quite a few days out with my nice Baptist lady, she does cheer me up.

Workers

Had various things done to the house and appliance repairs over last few years. Couple of things you notice about the average British workman is a) They do a damn good job and b) they don't pay much attention to any of this health stuff. If they are here for any length of time I always make them tea/coffee and they nearly all have two or three sugars. They also smoke a lot. Just had some scaffolding put up so a village friend can do my gutters/soffits and found fag butts everywhere. (It was quite cheap, so not complaining, and a visit from my brother was much worse). Blokes I know up the club who do roofing, fencing etc for a living drink so much they even make Mr P looks abstemious and are constantly popping out for a fag.

I suppose they do get a lot of exercise in their jobs, unlike us IT and other deskbound sorts. Sitting at a desk all day, even if you do get exercise outside of working hours, is not exactly healthy either. but not sure that entirely compensates. Health does seem to be very much a "class" issue.

A vote can't be democratic can it?

A strong national identity, with a population which shares common culture and beliefs, is a very positive thing. For that reason we are happy if the Scots choose to leave the UK, good luck to them, provided that they take on their share of national debt and do not expect the rest of the UK to be hampered by a currency union. For the same reason, assuming the poll results are genuine and there is no serious risk to those of Ukranian origin, we see no reason why Crimea should not be free to join Russia if it wishes.

We see no suggestion in the press that the vote in Crimea, which has a 59% Russian majority, was rigged but the reaction of Western governments is predictable, since when was the result of a vote ever a factor in our "democracies"? It is only the idiocy of the West that has caused all this tension. There was a chance to build relations with Russia but we kept the cold war going with a typically insane US foreign policy to bring these countries into NATO and a rush by the ego-driven EU empire builders to burden us with the poverty-stricken citizens of Eastern Europe.

At least the Scots and Crimeans get a vote. More than the rest of us ever do on the major decisions that impact our lives.

Update: Too true, this is: PETER HITCHENS: We're being dragged into a new Cold War by a puffed-up bullfrog (and I don't mean President Putin)

Privacy or privates?

I see the NHS records database has been shelved over privacy concerns but, given the stories about future costs of providing health care for an aging population, should privacy be the main priority? Maybe the NHS should start up a porn site and flog all those pictures they take of intimate bits. Where else can you get a live video from inside somebody's fanny or backside?

Whatever it is, you can always find somebody with a fetish about it, so even the most unlikely images might have a value.

PS To Our occasional Yank viewer. No, a fanny and a backside are not the same thing!

Anticipation

Going down slow. Being on your own really sucks. In the good old days I'd have just gone to a disco with a couple of mates. No Casenova but I wasn't too bad at finding women, it was at an 18+ disco in Bromley that I met the missus. Unfortunately, there ain't no discos for us old 1960s farts. After a few minutes of our usual mad jumping about the floor would be littered with walking sticks, false teeth and colostomy bags.

So reluctantly signed up for one of those mature dating sites. A lady nearby contacted me and invited me for a drink tomorrow evening. Looks legit but who knows? You read things about these sites. Will she be an 18 stone Russian woman in search of a UK passport? Said that to someone else as a joke but just an hour later got added as a "favourite" by a Chinese Lady, living in China and seeking to join her sisters in the UK. She was honest about it, at least.

Getting rather nervous now. When I get there tomorrow will it even be a women at all? Or a Bangkok ladyboy?

Real Reality TV

In real life there are no invasions by aliens from outer space, no plagues of zombies, no expanding black holes swallowing the land, no giant Japanese lizards escaping from ships, no immense Gorillas climbing skyscrapers, no 50 foot women (damn shame that one), no time-travelling heros and no climate storms freezing the country. We don't solve murders in our village every week, get to go to distant planets or ever get a chance to defeat criminal gangs and save the world from evil dictators while bedding lots of hot women.

Has the impact of decades of this extreme fiction ever been investigated? Could it be that people become unsatisfied with life because, for most of us anyway, it is never as exciting as films or TV? Perhaps we should have much duller things on TV to make people more satisfied with what they have:

Socks in the City Four American women, including one with enormous teeth, run a business that buys odd socks and matches them up so that they can sell the matching pairs on eBay.

The Adventures of James Bland. A boring chap who sits on his sofa every night, visiting online casinos, fighting villains in computer games and bedding hot women in his imagination while tossing off to xnxx.com

Dr Hugh. Eccentric retired GP Dr Hugh Smith lives in an old police box. Every few years he likes to put on makeup and masquerade as somebody completely different. His living accomodation is far bigger than it appears because a hole in the police box wall connects it to the shed behind.

CSI East Gobsley. A spin off from the US CSI programs including "CSI New York". Investigators in the quiet little town of East Gobsley use their skills to track down those responsible for its most serious crimes, including a discarded pizza box, a damaged wing mirror and "ARSE" sprayed on the post office wall.

The Walking Deaf. In this post apocolyptic world a virus causes large numbers to become almost deaf. The few people unaffected do their weekly food shopping at the supermarket while trying to steer clear of people shouting "CAN YOU SPEAK UP PLEASE?" at the checkout staff.

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That's communism - yes, it really is!

Had a vodka-fuelled political argument with a bloke up the club the other day. He's a nice chap but a bit of lefty.

I mentioned some failures of the former Soviet Union and heard something I have heard many times before, going back to student days. The USSR was nothing to do with communism, it was just a dictatorship that had abandoned its Communist ideals. Not so many months back I was told that China was never a REAL communist state either. Whenever one points out the numerous failures of communist states, the lack of personal freedom or democracy, the corruption, the poor economic performance until they embrace some capitalist principles as China and Vietnam have, we are blandly assured that those were/are not really communist states.

In purely theoretical terms they are right, communism is not supposed to have any leaders and everything, both property and means of production, is supposed to be shared equally by all citizens. There are two problems there. The first is that the idea is utter bollux, how can you possibly acheive a concensus between millions of people without some taking charge and organising things? The second is that it completely ignore the realities of human nature, people will never contribute equally to society and those who do resent having to share with low acheivers they do not know. Communism may work in small communitoes of like-minded people but in a state? Never. In purely practical terms the USSR, China etc were communist states because that is what communist principles will produce every time, one party dictatorships.

These denials make as much sense as saying that global companies ripping us off, economic bubbles due to speculation with no substance or banks rigging the markets have nothing to do with capitalism. The only difference is that I have never heard any capitalist say anything so utterly stupid.

How convenient for lefties that nobody can cite realities to criticise their imagined utopias on the grounds that they have not yet existed.

Yet another illustration - as if needed

We have cited Venezuela on previous occasions as a lefty state where freedom and economic performance would inevitably decline as socialism, approaching communism, was imposed. Chavez is dead, fortunately, but his successor is no better. This should be one the richest SA countries due to its oil reserves but the economy is falling apart with high inflation and shortage of goods, there is government censorship and clampdowns and violence is rocketing.

Why is that socialists lack logic or any ability to grasp facts?

History

The sort of history that interests you probably reveals a great deal about the sort of person you are. The missus was a lovely, normal, caring sort of person and history was a passion. She was fascinated by the intrigues of the Plantagenets and could spend days reading about the doings of Eleanor of Aquitaine and thinking about what they said about her character. Me? I don't give a a shit about individuals past or (if I don't know them) present but am fascinated by the doings of mankind in general and what makes him tick.

I popped in to a local history exhibition today that had a lot of maps and photos about our two adjacent villages. About half was about the people who played a part in our past and I did not spend long looking at that information. Mr J Rawlings (or whatever his name was, we forgot) may have been a great bloke and done sterling service to Britain in the first world war but the only thing we found of interest was that his bust looked just like that old bloke who makes sneering comments in the balcony of the Muppets. On the other hand, the more general stuff about our iron industry, the smuggling trade and the origins of our historic buildings was fascinating.

No, I am not a people person. For me there is no obvious difference between studying the behaviour of men and animals and the chance of me ever being a leader of men is therefore zero. On the other hand, is it a good thing that people like me are never leaders? So much of our society is governed by a) emotion that blots out the wider picture or b) idealism that ignores the practical realities. Perhaps the actions of our governments would make a lot more sense if our rulers thought in a more detached and scientific way.

Perhaps we should form the Psychopath Party. It has a nice ring to it.

PS For people-oriented people, here's our local war hero , on the right:

PPS Posted to Photobucket by the guy who thought of this one. Better if it actually worked obviously.

Like this

Among the interesting new facts we learned at the exhibition was the prevalence of smuggling in our area. It was unsafe to be in certain places at certain times, things you saw might get you killed. Another thing we had never heard of was Rough Music. Apparently, if somebody offended the local community, they would get a crowd together and stand outside the micreant's house and make a lot of noise with catcalls, bells, horns, pots and pans or any other suitable apparatus. This could go on for many days.

Rough music, or Ran Tanning, was often directed against those who had abused children or been responsible for domestic violence and was banned in 1882. I suppose things like this may well get out of hand and, in our overcrowded communities, could well be a nuisance to others but, compared to some of the things that happen in the third and developing world today to those who offend their comunities, this practice of 18th century Britain seemed to be remarkably civilised.

When you consider the various reported failures of our authorities to take problems like stalking or domestic violence seriously until it's too late, when you consider the ineffectiveness of ASBOs in tackling the problems of petty youth crime that makes peoples' lives a misery, maybe it would be no bad idea to allow a bit of non-violent vigilantism back into our society provided there is adequate control.

Teenagers causing anti-social behaviour on our streets? Three nights of being followed around by people playing Cliff Richard albums could surely sort it.

Quite

Good Joke on Sickipedia:

My wife, children and I have been sitting upstairs in our Somerset home, totally cut off from the outside world, with the downstairs flooded for the last five weeks.

Today the Red Cross pulled up outside in a boat.

"Thank God!" I shouted. "Have you come to save us?"

"No," they replied. "We're collecting donations for Syria."

Flooding? We just need more flying pink zebras!

Even the daftest arguments often have a bit of reality and sense in them somewhere. People arriving at unsound conclusions will often make use of facts, they just tend to be rather selective in their use of them. There are exceptions and it is no surprise whatever that the most utterly ridiculous and nonsensical statement we have seen in recent years, outside of religion anyway, should come from a politician. Erick Pickles has said that the effects of extreme weather in the UK will be alleviated by our spending on foreign aid.

We have covered the idiocy of previous claims that foreign aid will reduce immigration and terrorism, see links below, but to say it will reduce flooding in the UK takes idiocy to an entirely new level. Even if future aid to the likes of Somalia, Haiti or Nepal did somehow start to help them develop significant industry and commerce of their own, despite the fact that it has never yet managed to do so yet, how the hell does he think that could reduce CO2 emissions? All the evidence from emerging countries shows that their main priority (sensibly) is to improve the wealth of their people and environmental considerations are not a priority. China, for example, is the world largest consumer of coal and the pollution that causes is not only endangering hundreds of thousands of their own children but is responsible for up to 25% of sulphate levels in the Western US. The use of coal in the Far East generally is growing rapidly, not reducing, while India's use of coal is growing even faster. It is growing in other countries too, like Russia and South Africa.

Foreign aid will never do anything for the likes of Somalia or Sudan until their peoples get their Khat-chewing heads out of their fundamentalist fundaments and, when/if that does happen, what is more likely? That they will forego improvements to their standard of living for the sake of a greener planet? Or make use of their largely untapped coal and oil reserves to make their lives more comfortable as quickly as possible?

Only a F* idiot, or a thick, fat politician could have any doubt on that one. That UKIP bloke who said flooding in the UK was due to legalisation of gay marriage made as much sense as Pickles.


 

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