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A very large box that I need to tick in my travel ambitions is Japan (a sister-in-law of mine is Japanese). Via the excellent website of Stephen Hicks, I came across this site showing some wonderful photos. It certainly encourages me to get on a flight to Tokyo as soon as I can plan and afford it. The Japanese, judging by the sheer scale of lighting, clearly do not worry over-much about their ‘carbon footprint’, to use the current cant expression of our political classes. Excellent. May 12th, 2007 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
 They are at it again. Medical experts are advising the state that they should mass medicate the population of Britain against a non-infectious disorder. Perhaps a ‘totalitarianism’ of experts might be more accurate as Food Standards Agency seem to think it is the super-owner of the bodies of everyone in the country. May 12th, 2007 | 55 comments - (Comments are closed)
Before all the waffle obscures matters it is worth remembering what the government headed by Mr Blair actually was – a continuation of the government headed by Mr Major. The same policies, more government borrowing, especially in the latter years of the Blair government, more government spending on health, education and welfare (and undermining of the armed forces), more regulations, and more power handed over to the EU. On Afghanistan and Iraq it is hard to see the government of Mr Major not supporting the Americans (especially in the post 9/11 climate) so no difference on this either. It is true that there has been so ‘rebranding’, for example the New Labour people seem to have a hatred of any name for a government body that implies a connection with the Crown – and they like sinister names like ‘the Ministry of Justice’, but how important this will prove I do not know. I suppose the only real difference might be Mr Brown’s ‘stealth taxes’ with lots of complex ways to increase taxes whilst hoping no one will notice. Such as the Robert Maxwell style raid on the pension funds – which (counting lost interest) has cost about one hundred billion Pounds since 1997 (not much if one says it quick). Of course this might lead to a discussion of all of Mr Brown’s Enron style PFIs and other complex schemes – but I find the subject too depressing. Anyway there is nothing that Mr Blair’s choice for Chancellor has done that Mr Major and ‘Ken’ Clarke might not have done (even the pension fund raid was under consideration by these people – and I bet they would have sold most of the gold reserve for half what it was worth just as he did), remember the ERM exchange rate rigging? It was supported by all parties (Labour, Liberal and Conservative) with Mrs Thatcher finding herself forced to go along (with hindsight Mrs T. should have resigned rather than go along with it – after all the swine turned on her soon anyway). Mrs Thatcher was interesting. Mr Blair (like Mr Major) was just another statist politician. May 11th, 2007 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
Instapundit noted that we did not rush to comment on the announced departure of Tony Blair but speaking for myself, the reason I felt no need to dash off an article is that I do not really give a damn because it is actually not that important. Glenn expects us to be cheering, but why? About the prospect of Gordon Brown running our affairs? Sorry but that is nothing to cheer about and I cannot really see that this will make a great deal of difference to government policies. May 11th, 2007 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
I nearly spilled my tea when I read this:
Concerned?! Particularly effective?!! So this is what they mean by diplomatic language… I think I shall start interpreting people’s remarks about my need to be more ‘diplomatic’ in an entirely different manner. Or is the term ‘reality-challenged’? FYI: Zimbabwe is enduring the world’s highest inflation, at more than 2000%, mass unemployment, and there are widespread accusations of civil rights abuses. May 10th, 2007 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
I thought this is one of the cases where technology is nothing but good news…
Until I read the final paragraph.
But then, it is never the technology that is at fault, but people and the uses they put it to… No matter, I am very pleased to hear that there is some work somewhere being done on the past of former communist countries. via Dropsafe May 10th, 2007 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
There is demand. There is supply. There is planned ‘diversity’. If anyone told the teachers that multi-culturalism was dead, they forgot to listen. For they have come up with latest revision in government plans to revive language teaching: teach them gypsy. Since English Romanies talk in English or an Anglicised version of Romany (Romanglish?), will they teach the pure version which has very few speakers in this country.
Since race and culture are not synonymous, and multiculturalism has promoted actions described as racist to increase, we can look on at another “legal duty” achieving the opposite outcome to that intended.
Gypsies will have the teaching of their language taken over by the state. Parents, interested in their children’s education, will choose more economically useful options. So Somali, the language of a failed state, will not be taken up with fervour either. And those who do partially learn, the blighted, will understand that they can insult gypsies better. If you wanted to escape the crap system by educating your children yourself, the baleful eye of the state has turned your way.
With the thin end, home education will become a postcode lottery, and the level of intrusion will be dependent upon the attitude of the local authority inspectors. One can imagine that Departments of Education, which are ignorant or unsympathetic of home-schooling, will use their powers to ‘discover’ failures, force parents to send their children back to state sinkholes and stamp out a practice that they deem an ideological competitor. This is the road that could lead to registration and prohibition. May 10th, 2007 | 40 comments - (Comments are closed)
There may have been disillusionments in the lives of the medieval saints, but they would scarcely have been better pleased if they could have foreseen that their names would be associated nowadays chiefly with racehorses and the cheaper clarets. – Saki (aka H. Munro). If you have not read any Saki, well you should repair that omission immediately. Many people, including PG Wodehouse, Noel Coward, Evelyn Waugh and others were inspired by the brilliant, cruel wit of Saki. I have my old friend and intellectual mentor, the late Chris R. Tame, to thank for encouraging me to read Saki. If you are ever in need of cheering up, read any one of Saki’s short stories. Absolute magic. May 10th, 2007 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
You sometimes hear of how London’s taxi drivers like to regale their passengers with their views on matters of public affairs. Maybe it is their self-employed, independent nature that lends itself to a certain feistyness of attitude. I do not always agree with what I hear from taxi drivers but often or not, they have their fingers on the pulse. Well, it turns out that the news service Bloomberg is polling the men and women who drive the London black cabs for their views on the state of the economy. If their views are correct, the UK economy is slowing down. To hell with the official government statistics. The cabbies have spoken. May 9th, 2007 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
That [Sarkozy] appears clueless as to the functional benefits of speculation is not surprising – politicians are generally clueless. It’s his idea that a bunch of politicians could ‘reinforce the morality’ of anything I find truly gobsmacking! A mob of used car salesmen would do a better job… – Commenter Sean May 9th, 2007 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
Reading Financial Times this morning, I came across an interview with Sarkozy during his election campaign, the FT’s sister paper, Les Echos. This extract says it all. Sarkozy: … I want to raise clearly in this campaign the issue of morality in financial globalisation. We didn’t create the euro for it to result in capitalism without ethics or scruples. I am extremely troubled by speculative movements. Who can accept that a hedge fund buys a company with borrowings, makes a quarter of the staff redundant to repay the loans, and sells the business piecemeal? Not me. In that economy, there is no wealth creation. The capitalist ethic, is that he who creates wealth earns money, and he who creates lots of wealth earns lots of money. That’s normal. On the other hand, speculation isn’t normal. Capitalism won’t survive without respecting a minimum of ethical rules. The eurozone should be at the forefront of this thinking. Les Echos: Do we need coercive measures? Sarkozy: If I am elected president of the Republic, I will ask the finance minister to propose, at the European level, a measure to reinforce the morality and security of financial capitalism. In this respect, taxation of speculative movements seems to me an interesting idea if it were introduced at a European level. I want to make France a country which rewards wealth creation, but which also knows how to strike predators. May 9th, 2007 | 36 comments - (Comments are closed)
Apologies for the sluggishness of the site recently, we have been under concerted attack from spammers. May 8th, 2007 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
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