The release of the names and salaries earned by the top Civil Servants is timely. This bunch cost the nation almost £30 million a year and there are only 172 of them. The Guardian has all the details in an article. What is shocking is that several of them earn more than the Prime Minister or the Ministers they supposedly work for.
NO! I'm not about to suggest the 650-odd MPs get a pay rise, but it does support my long held view that the major thing wrong with the UK economy is the fact that the Public Services in the UK now employ over one fifth of the total workforce. That those who supposedly 'lead' Whitehall are paid these huge salaries (and get a knighthood for their services when they retire to pick up a nice directorship somewhere) is nothing short of insulting to the taxpayers. These are the men and women who consistently block all efforts to reform the civil service.
Why?
Put simply; because their pay reflects the size of the department they 'manage,' not its actual delivery or its efficiency. It's all about how many minions you have, not what they actually do, or even if you have any idea of what they do. This is the reason there are endless duplications of activities, conflicts in legislation - yes, one department may well require a business to do something it is forbidden to do by another - and absolute stonewalling when anyone suggest a rationalisation.
They should be cut down to size and their departments with them.
Friday, 17 February 2012
Thursday, 16 February 2012
How to persuade Scotland to vote for independence ...
Just get the Prime Minister to make a speech declaring he would "fight tooth and nail to prevent it." I'm afraid Mr. Cameron either has taken leave of his senses, or he wants the Scottish people to vote for full independence. I'm not at all sure whether this is a clever political strategy, or a genuine belief that he can "persuade" the Scottish nation to remain in the UK.
Either way, I think he's just handed Alex Salmand the winning lottery ticket.
Either way, I think he's just handed Alex Salmand the winning lottery ticket.
Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Freedom ...
Freedom is something we all aspire to and it is a word much used in political circles, but can we ever have "total freedom?" As Josephus has pointed out in comments to a number of posts, the simple answer is "no." It simply isn't practical to allow everyone in society to exercise total freedom in everything. So we have rules and laws.
As a good friend and Barrister has often pointed out to me, the law is an extremely blunt instrument and often, especially in the English Legal system, what Parliament wrote and may have thought they meant, can turn out to mean something entirely different in court. In part I think this is where there is a problem with trying to legislate for "rights" and "freedoms." Ironically the people who drafted Magna Carta in 1326 got it just about right. They gave us freedom from harassment by the sovereign or their officers unless there was evidence of a crime, and they gave us the right to hold and express our own views, even when those were contrary to the sovereign. Of course, originally, these only extended to the landed barony - not to the peasants and serfs, but, by the 1600s even the peasantry enjoyed some protection.
The Bill of Settlement in 1688 gave us all further rights and set the pattern for the modern concepts of freedom from oppression, harassment and compulsion. However, since the 1990s, we seem to have reversed a lot of this. Now whenever anyone attempts to exercise their reasonable (and constrained) rights, someone else seems to be standing by to rush into court to claim that the exercise of those rights, impinges on theirs.
The more recent laws on various "rights" for a wide range of minority groups are now being used to prevent the majority from exercising their right to say no to many different things they may find offensive or unjust. Slim Jim, in a comment on a recent post asked whether the government that passed the Human Rights Act envisaged its being used in this way. The answer is probably not. Like a lot of the over-hastily rammed through legislation of the last 15 or so years, it is badly drafted and poorly thought through. Now we live with the unintended consequences. The Act is being used to allow murderers, terrorists, rapists and other wanted criminals to hide in the UK on the grounds that extraditing them to their countries of origin might result in an unfair trial, torture or having to face a death penalty. Clearly an infringement of their "human right" to carry on killing, raping, stealing or whatever ...
These and the "Equalities" legislation (You wouldn't believe how much of it there is!) are also being used to forward the campaigns by the National Secular Society (Membership 7,000 - coincidentally the same number as are members of the National Sausage Society) to outlaw prayers in public bodies and the teaching of religion in schools. These laws are also used to attack anyone whose faith may hold a different view of sexuality, marriage or child rearing. Coupled with this we have a plethora of laws defining (or attempting to) child abuse, child parenting and children's 'rights' all of which are used to compel parents to conform to what some academic is currently promoting as the "only" way in which children can be raised. And there is an army of social workers out there ready to enforce it - but only it sometimes seems on the softer targets, the really bad parents go unhindered because they are prepared to meet interference with violence.
Again, I'm sure the intentions of Parliament were good, but they didn't think through the consequences of a judgement deciding something they hadn't intended was permissible or ban-able under the relevant Act.
As Josephus said, nowhere in the world is there complete freedom of speech or action. It is undesirable and impractical, but what we seem to have arrived at in what Slim Jim calls a "Post Democratic" age, is a society in which minority groups can and do use the courts and the current legislation to compel the majority to conform to their wants and desires. That is probably as undesirable as a world in which everyone is at perfect liberty to exercise their rights at any time in any place and without any restraint.
The pendulum has swung from an age in which intolerance was acceptable, to an age where a new intolerance has been fostered and nurtured. The intolerance of anyone who dares to disagree. Perhaps its time to step back and consider carefully the kind of society being created by the new intolerance ...
As a good friend and Barrister has often pointed out to me, the law is an extremely blunt instrument and often, especially in the English Legal system, what Parliament wrote and may have thought they meant, can turn out to mean something entirely different in court. In part I think this is where there is a problem with trying to legislate for "rights" and "freedoms." Ironically the people who drafted Magna Carta in 1326 got it just about right. They gave us freedom from harassment by the sovereign or their officers unless there was evidence of a crime, and they gave us the right to hold and express our own views, even when those were contrary to the sovereign. Of course, originally, these only extended to the landed barony - not to the peasants and serfs, but, by the 1600s even the peasantry enjoyed some protection.
The Bill of Settlement in 1688 gave us all further rights and set the pattern for the modern concepts of freedom from oppression, harassment and compulsion. However, since the 1990s, we seem to have reversed a lot of this. Now whenever anyone attempts to exercise their reasonable (and constrained) rights, someone else seems to be standing by to rush into court to claim that the exercise of those rights, impinges on theirs.
The more recent laws on various "rights" for a wide range of minority groups are now being used to prevent the majority from exercising their right to say no to many different things they may find offensive or unjust. Slim Jim, in a comment on a recent post asked whether the government that passed the Human Rights Act envisaged its being used in this way. The answer is probably not. Like a lot of the over-hastily rammed through legislation of the last 15 or so years, it is badly drafted and poorly thought through. Now we live with the unintended consequences. The Act is being used to allow murderers, terrorists, rapists and other wanted criminals to hide in the UK on the grounds that extraditing them to their countries of origin might result in an unfair trial, torture or having to face a death penalty. Clearly an infringement of their "human right" to carry on killing, raping, stealing or whatever ...
These and the "Equalities" legislation (You wouldn't believe how much of it there is!) are also being used to forward the campaigns by the National Secular Society (Membership 7,000 - coincidentally the same number as are members of the National Sausage Society) to outlaw prayers in public bodies and the teaching of religion in schools. These laws are also used to attack anyone whose faith may hold a different view of sexuality, marriage or child rearing. Coupled with this we have a plethora of laws defining (or attempting to) child abuse, child parenting and children's 'rights' all of which are used to compel parents to conform to what some academic is currently promoting as the "only" way in which children can be raised. And there is an army of social workers out there ready to enforce it - but only it sometimes seems on the softer targets, the really bad parents go unhindered because they are prepared to meet interference with violence.
Again, I'm sure the intentions of Parliament were good, but they didn't think through the consequences of a judgement deciding something they hadn't intended was permissible or ban-able under the relevant Act.
As Josephus said, nowhere in the world is there complete freedom of speech or action. It is undesirable and impractical, but what we seem to have arrived at in what Slim Jim calls a "Post Democratic" age, is a society in which minority groups can and do use the courts and the current legislation to compel the majority to conform to their wants and desires. That is probably as undesirable as a world in which everyone is at perfect liberty to exercise their rights at any time in any place and without any restraint.
The pendulum has swung from an age in which intolerance was acceptable, to an age where a new intolerance has been fostered and nurtured. The intolerance of anyone who dares to disagree. Perhaps its time to step back and consider carefully the kind of society being created by the new intolerance ...
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
Marginalising Faith
Faith is currently under attack as never before. Even during the Roman Empire period it was tolerated, more or less, though the Romans exterminated the Druids in Gaul and Britain and the Carthaginians and one or two other peoples and their religions, usually because they indulged in human sacrifices. Christianity was a convenient scape goat under Nero and his successors, but that changed once the seat of government moved and Constantine became the Emperor. Sadly, once it became the "State" religion, the rich, powerful and politically ambitious managed to get control, and imposed a level of intolerance in complete denial of the real message of the Gospels.
Post the Rennaissance and the Reformation things did get a bit better, but the churches remained a means to power for the rich and powerful until the advent of the 20th Century. By then "science" had become the "new" religion and the "Old Order" was rapidly being replaced by the technocrats and thinkers who have built a "New World Order" which they claim requires no religions and no belief in anything other than the ability of mankind to take care of himself and to discover everything by the application of science and reason. The rich and powerful have cheerfully abandoned the churches and now worship exclusively at the new temples of 24/7 trading and shopping. Morality based on religious teaching is portrayed as "brainwashing" or "bigoted" and replaced with a new code in which anything is acceptable, except that which is "offensive" to the cogniscenti and celebrity chattering classes who parade their prejudices as "moral principles."
Among these prejudices is any form of religious faith. Baroness Warsi, leading a delegation currently on an official visit to the Vatican, makes some strong points about this. I do find it extremely ironic that the Richard Dawkins Foundation is campaigning for an outright ban on all public worship and a complete exclusion of any form of faith from any part of public life - yet his salary, and no doubt a large part of his wealth, was paid and is still paid out of Trusts set up since the foundation of the University College of which he is a professor, by people who were proud to be Christian and practiced their faith publicly. Recent court cases show there is good reason to be concerned about the activiies of these crusading secularists and atheists.
A recent court case brought against Bideford Council by an ex-councillor is just one example of the vicious and mean spirited approach these folk are prepared to use. Claiming that the opening of the council's meetings with prayers "breached his human rights" the National Secular Society brought a case to the High Court. Sadly the Judge, found in their favour, though not on the "Human Rights." Instead he found that the Local Government Act contained "no provision for religious expressions" and ruled that prayers before meetings were therefore "unlawful." He at least had the grace to admit that his finding "created serious problems for every public body and organisation." Frankly the fool should be put out to pasture. Hopefully the Appeal Court will throw his judgement out, but given the quality and sentiments of our Justices at present, I don't think this miracle is likely. The idea that I need legal permission to pray is offensive in the extreme. Why does this matter require a permission in the law? This has always been a matter for local choice and decision and Bideford twice voted by a majority to 1 to retain the prayers at the opening of their meetings.
Then there is the case of a couple who operated a B & B. They lost a case brought by a Gay couple they had refused accommodation to as it ofended their religious principles. It is interesting to note they were Christian, I cannot help but wonder if the judge would have dared to make the ruling he did had the couple been Muslim. Somehow I think not, but that is another issue. Now the couple have also lost their appeal. Apparently someone's "rights" take precedence over anyone else's "right" to hold a particular religious stance or belief. Now I will admit that on this particular issue I am ambivalent, largely because I do believe that the teaching of the church on this issue is misunderstood, misrepresented and needs to be rethought in the light of modern medical understanding of sexuality. However, I do find the current extremely virulent and sometimes offensive campaigning by the 3-4% of the population who are Gay or Lesbian and their demands that everyone accept their sometimes deliberately offensive displays of their sexuality impinges on my and everyone elses "right" not to have to endure it.
I grew up in a legal system that allowed a proprietor of a shop, hotel, restuarant, cinema, etc., to have a notice over the door which said "Right of Admission Reserved." Everyone knew it meant that theowner had the right to deny entry to those who might be unruly or conduct themselves in an unseemly manner, and it was rarely, to my knowledge used. It would seem to me that it is time to give propietors this right in Britain. Further, to allow them to make plain the matters they would consider exercising that right. Yes, that may introduce some forms of "discrimination" but we also have to recognise that society only functions properly when we recognise everyone else's right to conduct their lives in accordance with their beliefs. And yes, I do know that means accepting that I will be offended from time to time. This is, perhaps, where the whole "Human Rights" stampede has gone to far. No one has ever had a right to not be offended.
When the poorly drafted Human Rights Act was launched there were numerous warnings that the implications had not been properly considered from legal experts far more competent than either the MPs responsible or the Prime Minister and his Barrister wife. Now we see why they were ignored, this ghastly Act actually removed more "rights" than it gives and is the perfect vehicle for the likes of the Secularists who seek to destroy all forms of faith in public life. It is being used to marginalise anyone and everyone who dares to profess and faith on the grounds of "offensive" symbols or utterances. It is used to "prove" that anyone of faith is bigoted and biased and it is being used to prevent families from sharing their faith with their children.
Perhaps one of the biggest ironies I have seen recently was an article by an Australian Atheist professor stating that Atheists, Humanists and Secularists need to learn from Christianity how to give people the means to "step out of their responsibilities" and "become children" so that they can find relaxation and repose from their daily lives. Sounds remarkably like he's proposing creating a new religion. Of course, his proposals to remove religious education (he called it indoctrination) from schools and public life, and replace it with teaching of "rational thinking" and "secular morality." That sounds like indoctrination to me.
Baroness Warsi is right to warn of the militant secularists attempting to "take over Britain." We ignore her warning at our own peril.
Post the Rennaissance and the Reformation things did get a bit better, but the churches remained a means to power for the rich and powerful until the advent of the 20th Century. By then "science" had become the "new" religion and the "Old Order" was rapidly being replaced by the technocrats and thinkers who have built a "New World Order" which they claim requires no religions and no belief in anything other than the ability of mankind to take care of himself and to discover everything by the application of science and reason. The rich and powerful have cheerfully abandoned the churches and now worship exclusively at the new temples of 24/7 trading and shopping. Morality based on religious teaching is portrayed as "brainwashing" or "bigoted" and replaced with a new code in which anything is acceptable, except that which is "offensive" to the cogniscenti and celebrity chattering classes who parade their prejudices as "moral principles."
Among these prejudices is any form of religious faith. Baroness Warsi, leading a delegation currently on an official visit to the Vatican, makes some strong points about this. I do find it extremely ironic that the Richard Dawkins Foundation is campaigning for an outright ban on all public worship and a complete exclusion of any form of faith from any part of public life - yet his salary, and no doubt a large part of his wealth, was paid and is still paid out of Trusts set up since the foundation of the University College of which he is a professor, by people who were proud to be Christian and practiced their faith publicly. Recent court cases show there is good reason to be concerned about the activiies of these crusading secularists and atheists.
A recent court case brought against Bideford Council by an ex-councillor is just one example of the vicious and mean spirited approach these folk are prepared to use. Claiming that the opening of the council's meetings with prayers "breached his human rights" the National Secular Society brought a case to the High Court. Sadly the Judge, found in their favour, though not on the "Human Rights." Instead he found that the Local Government Act contained "no provision for religious expressions" and ruled that prayers before meetings were therefore "unlawful." He at least had the grace to admit that his finding "created serious problems for every public body and organisation." Frankly the fool should be put out to pasture. Hopefully the Appeal Court will throw his judgement out, but given the quality and sentiments of our Justices at present, I don't think this miracle is likely. The idea that I need legal permission to pray is offensive in the extreme. Why does this matter require a permission in the law? This has always been a matter for local choice and decision and Bideford twice voted by a majority to 1 to retain the prayers at the opening of their meetings.
Then there is the case of a couple who operated a B & B. They lost a case brought by a Gay couple they had refused accommodation to as it ofended their religious principles. It is interesting to note they were Christian, I cannot help but wonder if the judge would have dared to make the ruling he did had the couple been Muslim. Somehow I think not, but that is another issue. Now the couple have also lost their appeal. Apparently someone's "rights" take precedence over anyone else's "right" to hold a particular religious stance or belief. Now I will admit that on this particular issue I am ambivalent, largely because I do believe that the teaching of the church on this issue is misunderstood, misrepresented and needs to be rethought in the light of modern medical understanding of sexuality. However, I do find the current extremely virulent and sometimes offensive campaigning by the 3-4% of the population who are Gay or Lesbian and their demands that everyone accept their sometimes deliberately offensive displays of their sexuality impinges on my and everyone elses "right" not to have to endure it.
I grew up in a legal system that allowed a proprietor of a shop, hotel, restuarant, cinema, etc., to have a notice over the door which said "Right of Admission Reserved." Everyone knew it meant that theowner had the right to deny entry to those who might be unruly or conduct themselves in an unseemly manner, and it was rarely, to my knowledge used. It would seem to me that it is time to give propietors this right in Britain. Further, to allow them to make plain the matters they would consider exercising that right. Yes, that may introduce some forms of "discrimination" but we also have to recognise that society only functions properly when we recognise everyone else's right to conduct their lives in accordance with their beliefs. And yes, I do know that means accepting that I will be offended from time to time. This is, perhaps, where the whole "Human Rights" stampede has gone to far. No one has ever had a right to not be offended.
When the poorly drafted Human Rights Act was launched there were numerous warnings that the implications had not been properly considered from legal experts far more competent than either the MPs responsible or the Prime Minister and his Barrister wife. Now we see why they were ignored, this ghastly Act actually removed more "rights" than it gives and is the perfect vehicle for the likes of the Secularists who seek to destroy all forms of faith in public life. It is being used to marginalise anyone and everyone who dares to profess and faith on the grounds of "offensive" symbols or utterances. It is used to "prove" that anyone of faith is bigoted and biased and it is being used to prevent families from sharing their faith with their children.
Perhaps one of the biggest ironies I have seen recently was an article by an Australian Atheist professor stating that Atheists, Humanists and Secularists need to learn from Christianity how to give people the means to "step out of their responsibilities" and "become children" so that they can find relaxation and repose from their daily lives. Sounds remarkably like he's proposing creating a new religion. Of course, his proposals to remove religious education (he called it indoctrination) from schools and public life, and replace it with teaching of "rational thinking" and "secular morality." That sounds like indoctrination to me.
Baroness Warsi is right to warn of the militant secularists attempting to "take over Britain." We ignore her warning at our own peril.
Monday, 13 February 2012
The Political Morass
Over the last few hours (Starting last night) I've been exchanging messages with a man standing for election as a Town Councillor. It began because I took umbrage at a remark he made with regard to Her Majesty and descended, for a while, from there. I'm afraid he was most put out by my rather blunt expression of my opinion of the current political classes and the civil service. Apparently he was one, and set out to defend the actions, deviousness and other twists and turns the civil service make which drive the rest of us to the desire to invite them to decorate lamp posts with their persons.
Having eventually managed to agree that there is a great deal wrong with both our political system and the civil service, we've declared a truce. I won't change my view, I have far too much evidence of the duplicity, blatant manipulation and outright dishonesty at work in Whitehall to do so, but I respect the fact that he can defend his perspective from the other side of the fence. I have no doubt some town, somewhere, will, if they elect him, have a meticulous councillor who will drive his council's officials up the walls with his Whitehall procedures, but if it serves his voters, that will be a good thing.
It has made me stop to think about the whole state of the government we have. Frankly, it stinks. Looking at the voting statistics tells you its almost as rotten now as it was prior to the 1836 Reform Act which got rid of "boroughs" like Old Sarum (1 voter = I MP) and brought in a qualified universal male sufferage. OK, it took almost another hundred years before the ruling MCPs extended that to women, but already the civil service was building the empires of a myriad Sir Humphreys. We now have "Constituencies" where the vote is so partisan it wouldn't matter if the candidate was a convicted criminal serving time - he'd be elected if he had the right Party label. The first past the post system in the UK was intended to be a vote for the candidate of choice, not the Party he or she represented. But that is not how it works in practice. In many such constituencies the candidate could well be someone's pet cat. Right Party badge; it's elected.
This is only a part of a much larger problem. The voting system needs reform, so does the entire edifice that is Westminster/Whitehall, but that is like asking the turkey to vote for its own slaughter. It isn't going to happen. The trouble is that far too many voters know their vote doesn't count in their home constituency. So why bother? Even if you do get the government of choice, nothing very much changes, because the civil service is such a vast drag on everything, it is almost impossible to get anything changed and even if a government does get something changed, it is usually not what they expected or wanted, but what the civil service was prepared to allow.
In figures I have been studying lately I came across the numbers for the election of Hitler and his party. It's worth pointing out that the Weimar Republic failed because its politicians were so self interested and so fragmented, no one could form any sort of stable government. There were two general elections in 1932 followed by one in March 1933. The Nazi's polled a total of 17.3 million votes out of 38 million cast (43% with a turnout of 88%) and still only got enough seats to form a government by joining a coalition with the German Nationalist Party. Once in power, of course, they were able to rearrange things to their taste and the dictatorship was launched.
Looking at that statistic brought sharply into focus the fact that I don't recall a UK government since the 1950s that has enjoyed as big a share of the popular vote. Even Mr Blair's claimed "landslide" was 41% of the turnout vote, from memory only around 52% of the voters. This meant that his "mandate" came from 28% of the voters at best. No wonder Mr Brown never risked an election until he had no option.
The problem is that the wider populace can see that, no matter the political ideology proclaimed by the Party, the politicians, the senior civil servants and the wealthy do very nicely - and the rest struggle. The voter is nothing to these people as they award themselves generous pensions, terrific salaries and look after the people who make the big donations that keep the party rolling. That includes the Union Bosses who are just as much a part of the problem. Why should I vote for my own impoverishment? Why should I vote for some idiot who will give a chunk of my tax to himself/herself, a nice slice to his Permanent Under Secretary and his assistants and then pass laws that end up raising prices on everything and increase the profits for his chums in commerce and industry?
Frankly, if I can see this, then everyone else can as well. The truth is the current political set-up benefits only the civil servants, politicians and the wealthy. That has got to change.
Having eventually managed to agree that there is a great deal wrong with both our political system and the civil service, we've declared a truce. I won't change my view, I have far too much evidence of the duplicity, blatant manipulation and outright dishonesty at work in Whitehall to do so, but I respect the fact that he can defend his perspective from the other side of the fence. I have no doubt some town, somewhere, will, if they elect him, have a meticulous councillor who will drive his council's officials up the walls with his Whitehall procedures, but if it serves his voters, that will be a good thing.
It has made me stop to think about the whole state of the government we have. Frankly, it stinks. Looking at the voting statistics tells you its almost as rotten now as it was prior to the 1836 Reform Act which got rid of "boroughs" like Old Sarum (1 voter = I MP) and brought in a qualified universal male sufferage. OK, it took almost another hundred years before the ruling MCPs extended that to women, but already the civil service was building the empires of a myriad Sir Humphreys. We now have "Constituencies" where the vote is so partisan it wouldn't matter if the candidate was a convicted criminal serving time - he'd be elected if he had the right Party label. The first past the post system in the UK was intended to be a vote for the candidate of choice, not the Party he or she represented. But that is not how it works in practice. In many such constituencies the candidate could well be someone's pet cat. Right Party badge; it's elected.
This is only a part of a much larger problem. The voting system needs reform, so does the entire edifice that is Westminster/Whitehall, but that is like asking the turkey to vote for its own slaughter. It isn't going to happen. The trouble is that far too many voters know their vote doesn't count in their home constituency. So why bother? Even if you do get the government of choice, nothing very much changes, because the civil service is such a vast drag on everything, it is almost impossible to get anything changed and even if a government does get something changed, it is usually not what they expected or wanted, but what the civil service was prepared to allow.
In figures I have been studying lately I came across the numbers for the election of Hitler and his party. It's worth pointing out that the Weimar Republic failed because its politicians were so self interested and so fragmented, no one could form any sort of stable government. There were two general elections in 1932 followed by one in March 1933. The Nazi's polled a total of 17.3 million votes out of 38 million cast (43% with a turnout of 88%) and still only got enough seats to form a government by joining a coalition with the German Nationalist Party. Once in power, of course, they were able to rearrange things to their taste and the dictatorship was launched.
Looking at that statistic brought sharply into focus the fact that I don't recall a UK government since the 1950s that has enjoyed as big a share of the popular vote. Even Mr Blair's claimed "landslide" was 41% of the turnout vote, from memory only around 52% of the voters. This meant that his "mandate" came from 28% of the voters at best. No wonder Mr Brown never risked an election until he had no option.
The problem is that the wider populace can see that, no matter the political ideology proclaimed by the Party, the politicians, the senior civil servants and the wealthy do very nicely - and the rest struggle. The voter is nothing to these people as they award themselves generous pensions, terrific salaries and look after the people who make the big donations that keep the party rolling. That includes the Union Bosses who are just as much a part of the problem. Why should I vote for my own impoverishment? Why should I vote for some idiot who will give a chunk of my tax to himself/herself, a nice slice to his Permanent Under Secretary and his assistants and then pass laws that end up raising prices on everything and increase the profits for his chums in commerce and industry?
Frankly, if I can see this, then everyone else can as well. The truth is the current political set-up benefits only the civil servants, politicians and the wealthy. That has got to change.
Sunday, 12 February 2012
The Big Freeze ...
We've lost another of our water barrels today. Despite all our efforts, the two weeks of sub-zero temperatures have defeated everything we tried to do to prevent the ice forming in our three water butts and our tame "Ogre's tub from building up too much pressure, the tub is now beyond repair and two of the water butts are blwon up like balloons. They'll split, we think, as the plastic is not that elastic. We'd taken the precaution of reducing the water levels - but then it rained and they refilled. Before we could drain them down again, it started to freeze.
Last year everything survived the heavy snow and cold, and all we really needed to do was keep breaking up the ice as it formed and removing it. Hasn't worked this year. As I type the temperature is at its highest in several days - a balmy minus 3.4*C!
The swelling water butts though came as a sharp reminder that the Greenpeace propagandists proclaiming that the melting of the Arctic sea ice will "raise the sea levels" is bunkum. Ice has a greater volume than the content of the water in it. That's why it's bouyant and floats. Melting all the sea ice is likely to reduce the water levels, not raise them. As for the ice covering the land - a science team have calculated that it will take around 15,000 years to melt all the ice in Greenland.
That said, I take leave to doubt, as I shiver through yet another icy winter (Six years ago one of the AGW proponents was proclaiming "ice and snow in winter are a thing of the past ...") that we are in any danger of a massive meltdown. Rather the opposite.
Last year everything survived the heavy snow and cold, and all we really needed to do was keep breaking up the ice as it formed and removing it. Hasn't worked this year. As I type the temperature is at its highest in several days - a balmy minus 3.4*C!
The swelling water butts though came as a sharp reminder that the Greenpeace propagandists proclaiming that the melting of the Arctic sea ice will "raise the sea levels" is bunkum. Ice has a greater volume than the content of the water in it. That's why it's bouyant and floats. Melting all the sea ice is likely to reduce the water levels, not raise them. As for the ice covering the land - a science team have calculated that it will take around 15,000 years to melt all the ice in Greenland.
That said, I take leave to doubt, as I shiver through yet another icy winter (Six years ago one of the AGW proponents was proclaiming "ice and snow in winter are a thing of the past ...") that we are in any danger of a massive meltdown. Rather the opposite.
Friday, 10 February 2012
Devastating English ...
The English language is rich in words which accurately, and sometimes devastatingly, express an opinion. Her are some prime examples of devastating insults from before the current trend toward inadequate command of the language and the common use of expletives in place of adjectives ...
"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second ... if there is one." - Winston Churchill, in response.
A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."
"That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."
"He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr
"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." Clarence Darrow
"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas
"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain
"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.." - Oscar Wilde
"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop
"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright
"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." - Irvin S. Cobb
"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." - Samuel Johnson
"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." - Charles, Count Talleyrand
"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker
"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" - Mark Twain
"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder
"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." Groucho Marx
My personal favourites are from Sir Winston Churchill -
"The Honourable Member has conveyed to the House a serious terminological inexactitude in this matter." (A wonderful way to call someone a liar!)
And the utterly unanswerable retort to Lady Astor on the steps of the Ritz in London ...
She: "Winston, you're drunk!"
Response: "Madam, you are ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober."
I was reminded of two more I share with Josephus -
"Sir, I have found you and argument. I am not obliged to find you an understanding." - Samuel Johnson
and
"I prefer the bikini model of statistics - what they reveal may be suggestive, but what they conceal is vital." - Unattributed.
"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second ... if there is one." - Winston Churchill, in response.
A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."
"That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."
"He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr
"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." Clarence Darrow
"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas
"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain
"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.." - Oscar Wilde
"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop
"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright
"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." - Irvin S. Cobb
"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." - Samuel Johnson
"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." - Charles, Count Talleyrand
"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker
"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" - Mark Twain
"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder
"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." Groucho Marx
My personal favourites are from Sir Winston Churchill -
"The Honourable Member has conveyed to the House a serious terminological inexactitude in this matter." (A wonderful way to call someone a liar!)
And the utterly unanswerable retort to Lady Astor on the steps of the Ritz in London ...
She: "Winston, you're drunk!"
Response: "Madam, you are ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober."
I was reminded of two more I share with Josephus -
"Sir, I have found you and argument. I am not obliged to find you an understanding." - Samuel Johnson
and
"I prefer the bikini model of statistics - what they reveal may be suggestive, but what they conceal is vital." - Unattributed.
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