text:
Tonight's the night!
Keep well out of the Twickenham area tonight, darlings, the crowds, the fans, the 'slebs', the media - it must be the All Blacks vs. England, you will think but you will be wrong. C'est moi! Tonight I give the definitive performance as Abhorson the executioner. As the direcor said to me after the dress rehearsal, "Jesus! I've never seen it played like that before", at least, that's what I think he said because he had his head in his hands at the time, obviously overcome with the emotional power of my performance.
Anyway, as I shall be away all day I thought it overdue for me to pick a few of my favourite blogs for you to go and visit. If you are made of stern stuff, start with Julia's Ambush Predator. She does 'Sardonic' in italics with a capital 'S' and how she maintains her good humour as she trawls through stories of such utter stupidity by those who rule over us is amazing to me. If a cool, intelligent and judicious look at the global warming scam is of interest to you then you could do no better than visit m' Lord Bishop Hill. And talking of cool intelligence, then John Redwood applies it in bucketfuls on his daily diary. But not everyone wants yet more politics so for a much wider scope try my e-pal A. K. Haart. He's a bit like me, poor chap, in that he meanders over anything that catches his fancy, except that he does it with some knowledge and learning, where-as I rely on bullshit baffles brains!
Enjoy! And don't forget to switch those taps off - there's a drought on, you know!
The Sunday Rumble 29:4:12
Jock prelate spouts BLX: I'm feeling a tad grumpy this morning. First of all my swimming pool is closed for the day so I missed my morning swim, and second, I awoke to the keening whine of some Jock prelate spouting 'A1 blx' as he accused Cameron of "immorality" because he wasn't stealing enough from the rich to give to the 'poor'. Have matters deteriorated to such an extent that even Cardinals nowadays sound like spotty 'stoodents' in a demo? Why do we not hear them thundering from their pulpits on the subject of real immorality of the simple, straightforward type that Jesus Christ would have understood? Truly, the Pharisees have taken over the temples of the Lord!
Gutless Cameron missed his chance: You may enjoy all sort of vices as a political leader but the one you must avoid at all costs is cowardice. Cameron lost his nerve before the election and failed to go for a strong, unambivalent Right-wing set of policies which, in my opinion, would have given the Tory party an over-all majority. Instead he has the dreadful 'il-Lib-non-Dems' hung round his neck like a dead albatross. I suspect that to begin with he was fairly happy because it shielded him from, using what I suspect to be his words, ' those dreadful Right-wing oiks' in his own party. At the end of last year Europe was a total shambles and there were more than enough disagreements of real substance between 'us and them', and between Tories and Lib-Dems, for him to have backed Clegg into a corner forcing him to break the coalition and thus engender an election earlier this year. Now his chance has gone and all the sins of omission and commission have caught up with him and his useless gaggle of ministers. For the past week the MSM, of all colours, have been writing his political obituary. The quicker he goes the better but God only knows who will take his place.
"Oh what a tangled web we weave ...": When first we practice picking and choosing which nice, cuddly, furry or feathered things to preserve! Thus, the State of Oregon is in a bugger's muddle because some-one talked the Government into protecting sea lions who promptly grunted something in 'Sea-Lionese' to the effect of, "Thanks, buddy, now where're all those salmon?" before they lumbered off to kill and eat zillions of them. This forced the authorities to rescind the Federal protection law and the sea lions learned the hard way never to trust what governments say because thousands of them were shot! Now it is the turn of the double-breasted cormorants. They, apparently, have grown so fat on baby salmon trying desperately to reach the ocean that they can barely fly! Hitherto a protected species they are now set for one last dive! My thanks to Drudge.
Total incompetence knows no barriers: It is a sort of relief to know that the Chinese, who we all credit with being "damned clever little devils, don'cha know" are, in reality, as clod-hoppingly useless as us! Apparently, a blind - repeat blind - political dissident who was under house arrest and 24-hour surveillance which included dozens of not-so-secret policemen and the use of searchlights on his house at night, managed to escape with his immediate family and reach sanctuary at the American consulate. This raises a fascinating question - do Chinese blush? Aha, I bet you never thought of that one before!
Now I know the real reason: The old friend and fellow thesp who pleaded an absolute and unbreakable prior appointment which prevented him from playing Abhorson the executioner on Monday night, and which resulted in me being dragged reluctantly, darlings, back onto the stage for (yet another) final farewell performance, has been found out! On Monday night United are playing City to decide who wins the Premier League. I have just spoken to him and hoped that his conscience pricks him as he sits in his armchair watching the match whilst I suffer for his art! He denies it all, of course.
"Oh, the horror, the horror!": I just went downstairs to make a cup of tea and as ususal Sky News was running on the 'telly'. It was a newspaper round-up programme and I took one look, and then another to be certain, and seeing that I was right - the panelists were the "fat, black clown" and Max 'spank me quick' Mosley - I fled upstairs unable to face it. Where do they find these people? And even more pertinent, why don't they ever ask me?
Are Europeans imitating Lear? According to Roger Kimball at PJMedia they are beginning to sound like him:
"No, no, no, no!" Thus quoth Lear to Cordelia near the end of the grimmest play Shakespeare wrote.
As my friend John Allison observes, Europe is acting a lot like Lear on his way to prison.
"No" said the Italians on November 12, 2011. They sent away Silvio Berlusconi who served on and off for a cumulative 10 years from 1994 through 2011 and was Italy's longest-serving Prime Minister ever.
"No" said the Spanish on November 20, 2011 to the Spanish Socialist Worker's Party of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, two-term Prime Minister from 2004-2011, replacing him with the conservative People's Party led by Mariano Rajoy.
"No" said Geert Wilders, Party for Freedom leader on April 21, 2012 to his coalition partner, Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Liberal Party, sending Holland to a likely caretaker government and election on September 12.
Ditto the French and the Greeks. And this procession of negatives means —what? [My emphasis]
Our rulers would answer with another Shakespearean quote: "A question not to be asked"!
Must I go to night school to order a coffee? This is a late addition but I need to go and make a coffee and it reminded me of my increasing irritation - oh, alright then, grumpiness - over the problem of ordering a coffee these days. "Black coffee, please", I say to the Polish/Latvian/Czech/Estonian girl behind the counter. She then reels off a list of names - in perfect English, I should make clear - none of which mean a thing to me. My polite good humour vanishes and I lean across the counter placing my nose a few inches from hers (poor thing) and snarl, "Just give me a strong, black coffee!" Well-trained and inherently courteous she smiles and asks, "Large, medium or small?" Cue: snapping, snarling, grumpy, old sod jumping up and down with mouth opening and closing, fists clenching and unclenching and . . . a highly intellectual and philosophical discussion on the essential Platonic meaning of 'large' and 'small' does not ensue!
Posted by David & Son of Duff | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)
Sorry, darlings, it's my dress tonight . . .
No, no, I'm not wearing a dress, I mean it's my dress rehearsal! I think I have my 18 lines firmly remembered, it's just getting them in the right order is the problem. Also, remembering my cues - so awkward when silence falls and one becomes aware of every actor on stage staring at you with bulging eyes and gritted teeth. Anyway, I am contributing to my costume and will be taking with me a rather fetching pair of army green Long Johns to wear under my manly leather jerkin to give it the real executioner look. Already I can hear the sharp intakes of breath amongst the ladies when I appear for my performance on Monday night! (I trust no panties will be thrown on stage - too, too, embarrassing!) However, today is the dress and as I will be out all day there will be blissful silence from me until Saturday. Make the most of it!
I want 'Rupe' for prime minster!
I have been watching, off and on, the Leveson enquiry grilling my mate 'Rupe'. (He's my mate because he sent me a brand new 'do-flicker-thingie' that allows me to record things on the 'telly' with the eae of a child's toy - which is about my level!) My loathing for Leveson and the oleaginous little creep who is conducting the interrogation has now reached record heights. The 'little creep' has just spent about 10 minutes giving a free puff to The Graun, of all things, as though it were Holy writ! Then he and Leveson became frightfully haughty because, without saying so, 'Rupe' indicated slightly less than full-hearted agreement with some Cocklecarrot called Eady who had been 'shocked, I tell you, shocked' that a 'Screws of the World' reporter had suggested to one of the 'Nazi tarts' cavorting with Max Mosley that her face could be pixillated out in return for the inside story. Quite right, that man, give him a Pulitzer prize for doing what any indecent but proper hack should do, that is, get the story and tell us what these shits are up to!
I fear for our press freedom from the judgment of Whig 'Cocklecarrots' like Leveson who appears to inhabit a dream world somewhere between The Guardian and Enid Blyton! In the meantime, let us all agitate for my mate 'Rupe' to renounce his American citizenship and revert to being a subject of Her Maj. Then we can all get behind him and make him prime minister because he is obviously shrewd, clever and successful - and he's nearly lost his Aussie twang, so that's alright! No doubt when he enters No. 10 he will be calling on my services although I am not sure in what capacity. Foreign Secretary, perhaps? The Home Office, possibly? You tell me where best my talents might be employed. Sorry, didn't quite catch that . . .
That dangerous Dane
Amongst all the 'Shakespeareanna' the other week was an article by David Sillito in the BBC News Magazine on the subject of Hamlet. It was a 'puff piece' based on a forthcoming production from Lithuania at The Globe as part of their 'Shakespeare in other languages' programme. Sillito reminds us that in the dark days of Stalin's rule over the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Shakespeare's plays were a useful tool for subversion. You need only quote this passage from Hamlet to realise how it must have struck nerves in an audience living under that tyranny:
Hamlet: What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?
Guildenstern: Prison, my lord!
Hamlet: Denmark's a prison.
Rosencrantz: Then is the world one.
Hamlet: A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons, Denmark being one of the worst.
On Sky Arts (and it will almost certainly be repeated) there was an hour-long compilation of the views of various actors and directors on the true nature of Hamlet, the play and the man. The most interesting opinion, in that it was a new one to me, came from Det. Insp. Barnaby who solves all those murders in the rural village of Midsomer whose body count now exceeds Chicago by quite a wide margin! I mean, of course, John Nettles, who was in his day a distinguished actor at the RSC. He suggested that the entire play was an allegory for the plight of Catholics living in Elizabethan and Protestant times and that it contained a subtle and secret message: Catholics must "take arms against a sea of troubles" and stand up for what they believe in.
This chimes with the strand of opinion that holds that Shakespeare was himself a Catholic, or at least, had Catholic sympathies. I remain unconvinced. It is clear from the play that young Hamlet had been educated at Wittenberg which, being the place where Luther preached his 'heresy', was a Protestant university. Alan Howard describes how he and Trevor Nunn discussed the myriad mysteries buried in the Hamlet text - or I should say, texts because Shakespeare kept cutting chunks out and adding chunks in thus producing several texts - bloody writers, heh!
Howard explained that Trevor Nunn had attached great importance to Hamlet's university education at Wittenberg. It was the Lutheran university and Hamlet would have returned to the Catholic society of Elsinore impregnated by the 'new philosophy', claimed Howard. 'Hamlet refers to himself as a "scourge and minister" of heaven - he has returned from Wittenberg with the protestant idea of individual responsibility in his mind. Claudius is the other side of the Catholic culture - eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we confess. When, in the prayer scene, he tries to come to terms with himself, outside the confession box in the protestant way, he can't succeed.
'The strongest influence on Hamlet is, perhaps, his dead father. Obviously he had been a stern, austere Catholic king. In other words, Hamlet had a very unsatisfactory relationship with his father which predates the play. He has a mum problem, but it's the dad problem that fascinated me. Why had Old Hamlet sent his son to Wittenberg - not only the university of Lutheran ideas, but also of political dissent - the revolution? Did the Old Hamlet suspect Claudius and send Hamlet away to hide what was going on from him? We never resolved this.
I still cling to my opinion that the main thrust of this play was Shakespeare's desire to point up the differences between the old Medievil age of superstition and the new Rennaisance times of reason. Laertes, in his anguish and fury at the deaths of his sister and his father never pauses to think first in his determined desire to kill Hamlet and gain his revenge. Hamlet, by contrast, cannot bring himself to murder his uncle until he has proof that Claudius did it. I wonder if he had read his famous contemporary and arch-Rennaisance man, Francis Bacon:
REVENGE is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon.
Rain, rain and more rain!
This is, I think, truly the most sodden Official Drought ever announced by HMG. To cheer you up, I thought you might like a bit of Ogden Nash. The first is especially for my e-pal 'DM':
No MacTavish
Was ever lavish.
And here are some oriental reflections by Mr. Nash but this is time on The Japanese:
How courteous is the Japanese,
He always say, "Excuse it, please."
And climbs into his neighbour's garden
And smiles, and say, "I beg your pardon";
And bows and grins a friendly grin,
And calls his hungry family in;
He grins and bows a friendly bow,
And says, "Sorry, this my garden now."
And finally some philosophy of life in Reflections of the Fallibility of Nemesis:
He who is ridden by a conscience
Worries about a load of nonsciense;
He without benefit of scruples
His fun and income soon quadruples.
There you are! Feeling better already, aren't you? No, no, there's no charge but please leave your galoshes, raincoat and umbrella by the door and do turn that tap off, there is a drought on, you know!
Through the bamboo darkly!
I am still peering as hard as I can into the mystery that is Chinese affairs and with a little help from friends and from the experts in the media I am beginning to discern a sort of pattern. First of all, most of the experts seem to think that the Bo Xilai affair was a personal matter that flared up and went out of control and thereby offered the 'moderates' in the government the chance to strike down a man who, whilst being enormously rich himself, yearned for a return to good old-fashioned Mao-ism. According to Jonathan Fenby in The NYT, the timing was perfect because the CCP (Communist Party of China) is due to hold its five-yearly congress later in the year and several places on the 9-man standing committee of the polit-bureau, the highest organ of power in the land, are up for grabs. Bo Xilai had been making a hard play for one of the places not least because the multi-metropolitan province he ran has a population of over 32 million! His grip on this power-base was beginning to give him every appearance of being an old-fashioned warlord with all the possibilities of schism that entails and which the Party could not accept.
But, as Fenby points out, the Bo Xilai affair is a symptom not a cause. The fact is, or appears to be, that the there is a very real difference of political philosophy emerging amongst the Chinese leadership and it arises because of, and how Karl Marx must be chuckling, "internal contradictions". Most people in the west assume that China is growing in wealth and power and to an extent that is true, but at the same time huge problems are also arising. Some are, so to speak, 'technnocratic' like a growing shortage of water in the north, a huge increase in pollution, fairly useless regulations on health and safety and corruption being rife and growing. A falling birth-rate and an enormous aging population is already looming large. At a more political level is the realisation that China's economic model, tremendously successful over the last 30 years, is now out of date - and if that reminds you of the UK you will have an idea of the difficutlies for any government trying to re-jig an economy. Apart from anything else, the government, as such, was not really responsible for the 'Chinese miracle'. It was, like all true capitalist explosions, the result of myriad small, local and actually illegal activities by peasant farmers and small shopkeepers and businessmen acting with a nod and a wink (and probably a backhander) in conjunction with local Party apparatchiks. (From personal experience during my nearly three years in Singapore I cannot stress too highly the entrepreneurial drive that seems to abide in so many Chinese.)
However, whilst individual Chinese entrepreneurs built up their businesses, the government made sure to hold on tight to the main institutions of the economy - the banks and the big state-owned enterprises. In other words, the Chinese polit-bureau is now facing the sort of huge institutional barriers to progress and freedom that Margaret Thatcher in the UK had to take on in the 1980s. Gradually, in the Chinese way, they seem to be making a start. Their currency has been allowed to have a wider band within which to float against other currencies - particularly the dollar. The state-owned banks are under pressure to operate under the same market disciplines that the smaller private banks have to do. Of course, all these changes are pushed forward on the "softly, softly, catchee monkey" principle and any signs of ill-discipline like that which regularly afflicts the internet is swiftly dealt with.
And, of course, even in this 'global village' of international business there is still a 'Chinese way' of doing business which harks back to the first rumbustuous beginnings of the industrial revolution in England and the gradual civilising of the 'wild west' in America as Michael J. de la Merced reports in The NYT:
It may be a tiny Chinese educational company worth a little over $200 million. But the ChinaCast Education Corporation has found itself embroiled in a battle worthy of a John Grisham novel.
Its ousted chief executive, Ron Chan, has been accused of aiding in the disappearance of ChinaCast's chops — ornate corporate seals that are needed to approve everything from paychecks to contracts.
And this week, more than a dozen men claiming an association with Mr. Chan burst into the company's Shanghai office twice, violently carting off several computers from the finance department, according to a United States regulatory filing late on Thursday.
As one local American expatriate put it:
"What you have here are Western systems of corporate governance that don't work with strong-willed Chinese C.E.O.'s," said Paul Gillis, a professor at the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University.
You can say that again:
The company disclosed in its regulatory filing that it was investigating the unauthorized transfer of ownership in several of its colleges to unknown people.
Then on Monday, as ChinaCast was preparing to pay out wages, several men burst into the Shanghai office, demanding the financial department's computers. These people forcibly took the equipment and punched at least one of the company's outside lawyers, according to a letter to employees from Mr. Feng.
On Tuesday, another group of men claiming to have Mr. Chan's approval ordered an electrical blackout to stop the workday, according to the memo. ChinaCast called in the police to throw the people out.
Operating in China might be described as 'a velly lisky business'!
There are, of course, two other areas of Chinese governance which are going to be hugely important in the next 50 years. Like so many other nations both now and in the past, there is a sort of symbiotic relationship between military and foreign policy but it is not clear at this stage who is leading, the soldiers or the diplomats. I have come across very little information on the People's Army although a recent article by Adam Lowther and Panayotis A. Yannakogeorgos in The American Interest cast some light on the Second Artillery Corps which is the formation designated as the custodian and operator of Chinese nuclear weaponry. The authors sum up the questions that arise:
In the modern Chinese military treatise The Science of Campaigns, the essence of Chinese nuclear strategy is described as lying "in the ingenious selection of targets, ingenious choice of timing opportunities, ingenious use of forces and firepower, and the ingenious application of operational methods." This prompts several questions: Who is targeted? What is the objective? When will it happen? Where will the Chinese deploy it? And why and how will they do it?
Worryingly, they say that Chinese strategy is based firmly on memories of the "century of humiliation" inflicted on China by the hands of 'foreigners'. One can't blame them but one hopes that they are not overly obsessive! Even so, one man who has studied the country's history:
Alistair Ian Johnston has pointed out in his analysis of three thousand years of Chinese military history, when China was at its weakest, it employed a strategy of appeasement. When it grew stronger but remained relatively weak, China employed a defensive strategy. When China was militarily superior, it took the offense
I don't suppose it is too difficult to discern Chines foreign policy aims which can be summed up as a desire for much greater power in South East Asia and the Pacific. The possibilities (or in some cases - Taiwan - the probabilities) are manifold. As I have remarked before, the Americans need a very shrewd and long-term policy in its dealings with China. This means that idiots like Romney threatening to indulge in an economic war from day one of his presidency need to be sat upon. The Americans should remember Theodore Roosevelt's words: "Speak softly, and carry a big stick."
Bloody, +@@#ing, #~^+ing footie!
Like millions of other morons I settled down last night to watch the return match between Barcelona and Chelsea Within five minutes one of the Chelsea defenders had to be substituted because of injury, then 'Barca' scored a goal, then John Terry, the captain, behaved like an inbred thug and was sent off, and then 'Barca' scored again and we were only 30 minutes into the game! At this point I thought to myself, this is going to be a massacre from which any one of even minimal sensitivity should avert their gaze - and so I switched channels. A couple of hours later I checked the news and heard that Mesi, currently the greatest footballer in the world, had missed a penalty and that Chelsea, with only 10 men, had evened the score to 2-all and thereby earned their place in the final! In other words, I had missed perhaps one of the greatest footie matches of all time. I then did a fair imitation of John Terry until the 'Memsahib' gave me a red card and sent me to bed!
As a consolation I did watch another recorded episode of Justified, a new, well, new to me, series on the somewhat obscure Channel 5 USA. I have watched several episodes and I still haven't a clue what's going on but - it is brilliant! Mostly it is brilliant for the language. It is set in Kentucky and they all speak the way my regular commenter, JK, writes! However, they do it in the most rich and elegant English I have ever heard on an American series. I remember the great Shakespearean scholar, John Barton, once saying that American-English was closer to Shakespeare's than current modern Anglo-English. Whatever, the characters in this story, mostly either cops or robbers, deliver long, complex and beautifully composed sentences that are a pleasure to listen to, er, even if the obscenity count is fairly high. I cannot discover who writes the scripts but he or she deserves a prize. Part of the unexpected pleasure is that these elegant sentences flow from the mouths of some truly hideous-looking hillbillies and the actors are good enough to relish the words without losing their characters. Finally, the series has a superb villain, Robert Quarles, played by Neil MacDonough who manages to scare me even through a TV screen! If I tell you that it is based on stories by Elmore Leonard then fellow afficianados of 'pulp fiction' will know to expect quality. Try it - it doesn't matter if you join it halfway through, I've watched four episodes and I still don't understand the plot - but I love it!
Debt, deficit, lending, borrowing - 'wot's it all abart, Alfie?'
For a clear idea of the current financial situation for this 'septic' Isle we must all be grateful to Jonathan Jones at The Coffee House. He has written a small piece which sums the situation admirably.
In essence, we borrowed £126bn last financial year which has just ended. That takes our 'credit card' total to just over the £1 trillion level! Our deficit last financial year, that is, the difference between what we spent over what we earned fell by 10%, slightly above the most recent target:
So the fiscal consolidation is proceeding, albeit a bit slower than planned. So far, it's mainly being achieved through raising revenues — particularly VAT receipts, which are up 10 per cent on last year. Central government current spending, meanwhile, has fallen by just 0.2 per cent.
Jones doesn't say this but I will: it is obvious that the government has failed miserably to cut its own spending and has simply taxed us to buggery and back to raise the extra dosh! To be fair, which I am not very inclined to be, part of the government's spending was in the form of £129 million a day in interest on our national debt! If you strip that out, then core government spending dropped by 2.3%, but, net social benefits went up by 2.6%.
The plain, simple and obvious fact is that the government has shirked from really taking the axe to its spending because we are still spending more than we earn and the only difference is that the increase in this annual 'overdraft' is slightly slower than hitherto. Thus, our national debt continues to increase year on year. Cameron and Osborne had the chance to plead mercy from the electorate when they first came into power on the grounds that, as that outgoing ministerial idiot actually said in a note left at the Treasury, "Sorry, there's no money!" That was their chance to 'do a Maggie' but none of them understand economics and none of them has even a whiff of a political philosophy, and Cameron has absolutely nil leadership qualities. Now, as those somewhat frantic instructions for all government departments to set aside emergency funds indicates, they are beginning to realise that the ship of state is nowhere near being seaworthy. Tossers, the lot of them!
The 'urug' changes what passes for his mind!
Er, 'urug' is 'guru' spelled backwards which is how you have to put it when the owner of the title completes a 180 degree turnabout. The particular 'urug' I am referring to is not just a leading HAF (Hot Air Fanatic) but virtually the movement's High Priest. From his pulpit over the years he has thundered dire warning of 'Apocalypse Now'. For example, as WUWT reminds us, he told The Independent in 2006:
"billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable" by the end of the 21st century.
And has been quoted in The Guardian:
80% of humans will perish by 2100 AD, and this climate change will last 100,000 years. According to James Lovelock, by 2040, the world population of more than six billion will have been culled by floods, drought and famine. Indeed "[t]he people of Southern Europe, as well as South-East Asia, will be fighting their way into countries such as Canada, Australia and Britain".
Yes, it is everyone's favourite looney HAF, the inventer of the 'Gaia theory', James Lovelock, who like many of us has grown old and is now beginning to learn something even if, at 92 years of age it has taken him a while - I mean there are late developers and then there are way-past-their-bedtime developers!
"The problem is we don't know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn't happened," Lovelock said.
"The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising — carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that."
Poor little 'Georgie Moonbat' will probably burst into tears - so it's good news all round, really!
All quotes from What's Up With That
Bringing home the Bacon #1
Sorry about the corny headline, it's a weakness and I throw myself on the mercy of the court! However, I have rediscovered one of my old 'Favourites' - Sir Francis Bacon. What a wise, shrewd , old cove he was. You can read him for yourself at the excellent Bartleby Books which might be a good idea because in paraphrasing him I am more than likely to set the old boy spinning in his grave with my misunderstandings. Even so, for those of you 'working stiffs' without too much time on your hands, perhaps my occasional synopsizes will intrigue you enough to encourage you to look him up later.
In Essay VI, Of Simulation and Dissimulation, Bacon considers these behaviours particularly as they appear in the conduct of politicians:
There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man's self. The first, closeness, reservation, and secrecy; when a man leaveth himself without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is. The second, dissimulation, in the negative; when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that he is not that he is. And the third, simulation in the affirmative; when a man industriously and expressly feigns and pretends to be that he is not.
Oh yes, several contemporary names instantly spring to mind in all those three categories! He investigates each of them in greater depth:
For the first of these, secrecy; it is indeed the virtue of a confessor. And assuredly the secret man heareth many confessions. For who will open himself to a blab or a babbler? But if a man be thought secret, it inviteth discovery; as the more close air sucketh in the more open; and as in confession the revealing is not for worldly use, but for the ease of a man's heart, so secret men come to the knowledge of many things in that kind; while men rather discharge their minds than impart their minds. In few words, mysteries are due to secrecy.
Next, he moves onto dissimulation:
For the second, which is dissimulation; it followeth many times upon secrecy by a necessity; so that he that will be secret must be a dissembler in some degree. For men are too cunning to suffer a man to keep an indifferent carriage between both, and to be secret, without swaying the balance on either side. They will so beset a man with questions, and draw him on, and pick it out of him, that, without an absurd silence, he must show an inclination one way; or if he do not, they will gather as much by his silence as by his speech.
Finally, simulation:
But for the third degree, which is simulation and false profession; that I hold more culpable, and less politic; except it be in great and rare matters. And therefore a general custom of simulation (which is this last degree) is a vice, rising either of a natural falseness of fearfulness, or of a mind that hath some main faults, which because a man must needs disguise, it maketh him practise simulation in other things, lest his hand should be out of [practise].
In his final paragraph he sums up the pros and cons of these essential political and social 'arts and crafts':
The best composition and [temperament] is to have openness in fame and opinion; secrecy in habit; dissimulation in seasonable use; and a power to feign, if there be no remedy.
There you have it - Politics 101!
Lord Edmund Blackadder Sir Francis Bacon
A few more straight words from the royal mouthpiece
Some more bons mots from that straightest of straight speakers, His Royal Highness, Prince Philip, God bless him!
29 After Dunblane massacre [in which a madman went on the rampage with a gun], 1996: "If a cricketer suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, are you going to ban cricket bats?"
33 To the Scottish Womens Institute in 1961: "British women can't cook." (God, the man's got guts!)
41 To a fashion writer in 1993: "You're not wearing mink knickers,are you?"
44 "I'd like to go to Russia very much – although the bastards murdered half my family." 1967.
48 At a Bangladeshi youth club in 2002:"So who's on drugs here?... HE looks as if he's on drugs."
51 On how difficult it is in Britain to get rich: "What about Tom Jones? He's made a million and he's a bloody awful singer."
Duke of Edinburgh - Prince Phillip at a film premiere (Pic: Rex Features)
65 "People think there's a rigid class system here, but dukes have even been known to marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans." 2000.
68 On Princess Anne, 1970: "If it doesn't fart or eat hay, she isn't interested."
All and more courtesy of The Mirror.
Brace yourselves, this year I might be right!
I do realise that my forecasting skills are, shall we say, less than impeccably accurate! Even so, two things follow. First, being unembarrassable (well, the second-hand car trade does that to you) I shall continue to forecast with all the sublime confidence of a true dope! Second, like a clock I am bound to be right eventually!
So, bearing all that in mind, let me again forecast the end of the European Union as we know it within twelve months. Please note the careful use of the phrase "as we know it". I do not underestimate the ferocious perseverence of the Brussels apparat to go to extreme lengths in their fanatical desire for the Union to be preserved. We already have two examples of them over-throwing democracy in pursuit of their political aims and they will not be the last. Such is the general revulsion of an increasing number of European people against this creeping, useless and dangerous dictatorship that more and more of them will vote in politicans prepared to take action against Brussels and all that it stands for. As the two tectonic plates grind against one another one must expect some fairly massive political earthquakes. Standing behind them with financial taser guns in hand are the enforcers of the international financial community who, I sense, are rapidly losing patience with the whole tottering Potemkin village that is the European Union.
Just in the last few days the Italian apparatchik placed over the Italian people with the sole task of cutting the government's budget has admitted that he is unlikely to succeed. Likewise with the Greeks who in May have one last chance to vote and thus cling to the democracy they invented. Today we hear that even those über-Europeans, the Dutch, cannot agree on an austerity budget and the government has collapsed. The French, hitherto a Maginot line in defence of the European Union look as though they are about to raise the white flag and then change sides! And this morning, we learn that British government departments have been ordered to set aside funds for an 'emergency'. Hmmn! I wonder what 'emergency' they have in mind?
One wonders, with some trepidation, what Brussels will do. A Central Bank armed with the capability of issuing European bonds is highly likely and the Germans will be faced with a tortured decision - shame! That will lead inevitably to a proper (or to be accurate, an improper) European government with full fiscal powers. What else they might try is beyond thinking about. Have a nice day!
Sacre bleu, les Français sont 'dwarfist'!
Courtesy of les Francaises we bid farewell to the Hungarian dwarf as his miniscule sun sinks in the west! The times, they are a-changing, and not only in France. Like democracies everywhere, public opinion is slow to change and when it does it is usually incoherent and inchoate. The strength of the vote for the extremes indicates to me that it is not just Sarkozy who is out of favour but the entire political set-up which means - Europe. People have seen what are, in effect, dictatorships set up in Greece and Italy with government now being run by Brussels apparatchiks. Very gradually the news is seeping out that all the austerities locked in place by that unlikely pair of 'star-crossed lovers', 'Kaiserin' Merkel and President Sarkozy, are simply a means of protecting German banks and German industry. Now, in an equally bizarre marriage of convenience, the Left-wing Hollande who has already threatened dire nationalist actions against the supra-nationalist European Union, will be taking for his political 'wife' the very astute Marine le Pen whose assessment of Brussels and all its machinations can be summed up in one word - loathsome! If Hollande can cut a deal with her and and her 20% of yesterday's vote he is home and dry and Sarkozy will be left looking for a safe haven from the various corruption investigations currently being pursued. Perhaps, 'Bling-Bling' will be able to join 'Bunga-Bunga' in exile!
TV review: Those bloody Vikings are invading again. Not with axes and spears but with the very best of their Scandinavian TV output. By now everyone knows about The Killing unless you have been living on Mars. Then there was Borgen which various TV critics praised up to the hilt but which I dropped after about four episodes. It's bad enough following the antics of real politicians without having to watch fictional ones. And anyway, the problem with modern political drama is that you are bound to upset someone. Thus, in Borgen, the female lead was a soppy leftie and my sympathies, natch, were with the rather ghastly Machiavellian Right-winger. Last night, on BBC4, we had the first two episodes of The Bridge, a combined Swedish/Danish production. This very definitely has the makings so if you haven't seen it, look out for a repeat sometime during the week or cancel the dinner party next Saturday and watch. Finally, leaving Scandinavia for America I have to report that I gave up on Homeland. It wasn't just that the wife never answered my letters but the unfortunate fact that the whole thing became more and more ludicrous. There was a distinct lack of attention to detail in the production which added to my disbelief in the whole thing.
Bookaholic woes: Well, I reploughed my way through part of David Bergami's excellent and comprehensive history, Japan's Imperial Conspiracy, to assist me in the subterfuge that I actually know what I'm talking about when I give my presentation on the subject! Actually, I feel rather sorry for the Japs. They were quietly minding their own business, enjoying their medievil life style when that impertinent American naval officer ordered them to open up to the world. Why couldn't he just mind his own business?! Well, of course, they came out of their frozen society not like greyhounds but like the dogs of war. It took WWII, zillions of dead and two atom bombs to knock some modern sense into them. I also finished Ian Mortimer's Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England - an absolute must buy! My admiration for my ancesters is now boundless. Never was the lottery of life more cruel and arbitrary than then. Be born right, preferably with a bit of land, and you were in with chances. Born wrong, and if you were lucky (or do I mean unlucky?) enough to dodge the childhood infections that killed so many, you faced a life of starvation, criminality and abuse by all and sundry but especially the authorities. And yet ... and yet ... it was the time of Shakespeare and Bacon and the renaissance. But now my problem is what next? Recently I saw the film of Lawrence of Arabia for the first time in decades and it made me realise that I knew absolutely nothing of Allenby's campaign in Arabia. Blow me down, I walked into the closing down sale of our local bookshop - a sign of the times - and the first book I saw was Eden to Armageddon: World War I in the Middle East by Roger Ford which now totters uneasily on my pile of waiting to be read books. But, there is a challenger which I will tell you about in the next item.
Allan Bloom, an anniversary: I hadn't realised it but it is now the 25th anniversary of the publication of Allan Bloom's gallant assault on the treachery of intellectuals, particularly university intellectuals, to the high-minded principles of true intellectualism. I describe it as a "gallant assault" because it has all the hallmarks of the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, courageous but futile! His book, The Closing of the American Mind, a slightly dog-eared copy of which sits on the book shelf to my left, caused a sensation. To begin with it attracted some rave reviews but when the (so-called) intelligentsia(!) recovered from their shock the counter-attacks began. Needless to say, nothing much has changed in the Humanities Departments of universities in the west (I include ours!) but Bloom's book lives on. Two excellent essays on the man and his book here and here. But now my problem remains - do I re-read Bloom or follow Allenby and Lawrence into the desert?
Prince Phil - a National Treasure: In all the forthcoming celebrations of Her Maj's 60 years of duty I do hope Prince Philip is given a mention. Courtsy of 'SoD' (Son of Duff), here are a just a few of his priceless utterences over the years as recorded by the Daily Mirror which have reproduced ninety of them to celebrate the Prince's 90th birthday:
5 To expats in Abu Dhabi last year: "Are you running away from something?"
7 At a project to protect turtle doves in Anguilla in 1965, he said: "Cats kill far more birds than men. Why don't you have a slogan: 'Kill a cat and save a bird?'"
10 His description of Beijing, during a visit there in 1986: "Ghastly."
14To a British trekker in Papua New Guinea, 1998: "You managed not to get eaten then?"
21On the Duke of York's house, 1986: "It looks like a tart's bedroom." (Which, in a manner of speaking, it was, I suppose. Ooops, there goes the Knighthood!)
28 On the new £18million British Embassy in Berlin in 2000: "It's a vast waste of space."
A Chinese opera!
A friend sent me a report from wantchinatimes.com, a news organisation based in Taiwan. It manages the impossible by introducing even more murk and mystery into the Bo Xilai affair whilst simultaneously providing some excellent background information.
Comrade Bo, the now disgraced former head of the Party in Chongquing, was the son of an 'Immortal', that is, the son of a man who soldiered with Mao and took part in the famous 'Long March'. Needless to say, he was rewarded by Mao with imprisonment and disgrace. Eventually his son, Bo Xilai, wormed his way back into favour. In this, he was aided by marriage to the daughter of an appatchik family called Li Danyu.
As you can see, he probably did not marry her for her looks! However, the connection to a 'distinguished' family with connections in the Party hierarchy gave Bo Xilai the safe base he needed to grease his way up the Party pole. Again, with all the inevitability of a play by Shakespeare, no sooner had begun to achieve a status and power base of his own, to use the crude but neat Americanism, he 'ditched the bitch' and married Gu Kalai, and quite apart from her connections as the daughter of a senior general you can see the attraction:
Well, so far, so normal, but alas for poor old Bo Xilai, the ex-Mrs Bo was not one to let bygones be bygones. Just the opposite, she mounted a sustained and fierce campaign against her former husband using all her connections to smear his reputation as he rose further up the Party ladder:
Bo Xilai's first wife has continued to be a thorn in his side throughout his career. Over the last ten years she has sent numerous letters of petition, following him wherever he went and telling everyone about his adulterous behavior. One insider described Li Danyu as a bomb that has been tracking Bo Xilai for over ten years.
This year, Bo Xilai was on the threshold of being offered a top job at the 18th Party Congress in which major leadershiop changes are expected. His first wife's constant denigration was of such a nature that he had his own son by her arrested as a means of blackmailing her into silence. Very shortly thereafter, his Chief of Police tried to defect, first to the British, then to the Americans. Now, of course, Bo Xilai and his second wife are under arrest. The mystery death of the Englishman, Neil Heywood, remains unsolved.
I am almost tempted to paraphrase one of my favourite sayings - only in China! But of course, this sort of tale is as old as Mankind. The ancient Greek tragedians would be familiar with the outlines. My only wish and hope is that amongst the zillions of Chinese citizens there is an oriental Shakespeare quietly scribbling the outlines of a new play. I stress the word 'play' because Chinese opera is a cacophonous racket fit only for masochists to listen to. If I have any Chinese readers, I apologise, of course, but . . .
K-K-K crikey! I never knew that!
MDA (My Darling Ann) provides me with an uncomfortable history lesson - er, uncomfortable for Democrats, that is, not me. She notes the hysterical lynch mob mentality of so-called 'liberals' in America which has arisen after the Trayvon Martin shooting in Florida. ('Health' warning: I have given the Wiki link without reading it but I would advise caution on whatever 'facts' it offers and whatever conclusion it comes to!) Democrat outrage and their insistence that this was a race crime always sounded as dodgy as one of the old pieces of second-hand shrapnel I used to flog back in the day but when you read Ann Coulter's brief synopsis of the history of the Democrat party, gun laws and the Ku Klux Klan it makes you realise what a prize collection of over-ripe hypocrites they are.
She begins with a stiff dose of commonsense:
We don't know the facts yet, but let's assume the conclusion MSNBC is leaping to is accurate: George Zimmerman stalked a small black child and murdered him in cold blood, just because he was black. If that were true, every black person in America should get a gun and join the National Rifle Association, America's oldest and most august civil rights organization. Apparently this has occurred to no one because our excellent public education system ensures that no American under the age of 60 has the slightest notion of this country's history.
Alas, ignorance of history is not confined to the USA! However, ever helpful she provides a brief history of race violence, gun laws and the KKK:
Gun control laws were originally promulgated by Democrats to keep guns out of the hands of blacks. This allowed the Democratic policy of slavery to proceed with fewer bumps and, after the Civil War, allowed the Democratic Ku Klux Klan to menace and murder black Americans with little resistance.
(Contrary to what illiterates believe, the KKK was an outgrowth of the Democratic Party, with overlapping membership rolls. The Klan was to the Democrats what the American Civil Liberties Union is today: Not every Democrat is an ACLU'er, but every ACLU'er is a Democrat. Same with the Klan.)
Heavens to Betsy - say it ain't so! But alas, it is:
In 1640, the very first gun control law ever enacted on these shores was passed in Virginia. It provided that blacks -- even freemen -- could not own guns.
Chief Justice Roger Taney's infamous opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford circularly argued that blacks could not be citizens because if they were citizens, they would have the right to own guns: "[I]t would give them the full liberty," he said, "to keep and carry arms wherever they went."
With logic like that, Republicans eventually had to fight a Civil War to get the Democrats to give up slavery.
Alas, they were Democrats, so they cheated.
After the war, Democratic legislatures enacted "Black Codes," denying black Americans the rights of citizenship -- such as the rather crucial one of bearing arms -- while other Democrats (sometimes the same Democrats) founded the Ku Klux Klan.
For more than a hundred years, Republicans have aggressively supported arming blacks, so they could defend themselves against Democrats.
And you all thought the Democrats were the good guys in the white hats, didn't you? That's because you have watched too many Hollywood films! It was Republican president Ulysses S. Grant who urged Congress to pass a law allowing blacks to bear arms and who deployed the army to destroy the KKK. But, of course, the KKK arose again in the 20th century and where-ever they were resurgent, gun control laws swiftly followed with some surprising results:
This will give you an idea of how gun control laws worked. Following the firebombing of his house in 1956, Dr. Martin Luther King, who was, among other things, a Christian minister, applied for a gun permit, but the Alabama authorities found him unsuitable. A decade later, he won a Nobel Peace Prize.
And here's another little thing I bet you never knew - it was the much reviled (in Democrat circles and the media) NRA (National Rifle Association) who supported blacks in their efforts to enjoy the right to bear arms and thus aided them in their efforts to defend themselves against attacks by the KKK. I wonder if the impeccably liberal Robert Redford will ever make a fim starring as the hero boss of the NRA who fought against the Democrat party in defending the rights of blacks to own guns? Don't hold your breath!
Ann Coulter is superb and I want her to have my babies. Just imagine the result of a mingling of her genes and mine. I'm at a loss for words . . .
Tim Worstall gives Polly what she wants
Thanks to 'SoD' (Son of Duff) for providing me with a link to Tim Worstall's piece in The Daily Telegraph. Impossible to paraphrase and anyway, it's simply too good to miss. Click on and enjoy. I wonder if she'll say 'thank you'?
Obama close to becoming a tar baby!
Hoist in his own petard and about to be dropped into a large, smelly puddle of oil! Too, too delicious! For those with more important matters to concern them than esoteric American squabbles over oil pipe-lines and supposed environmental damage let me explain that Canada has discovered an astronomically huge oil and natural gas field. The Chinese have already rushed in with orders but for the Americans to accept it required the construction of a very long pipe-line named 'Keystone'. Cue every soppy Greenie-Tree-hugger to come out of the woodwork and agitate against it. They, of course, are part of 'Tar Baby's natural support, both financial as well as electoral. Then there are the business shysters in the so-called 'alternative energy' racket, like the late but unlamented Solyndra company who went belly-up after receiving zillions in Federal hand-outs, who want desperately for oil to be even higher priced than it already is so that their product looks cheap! So, naturally, the 'Tar Baby' refused to sign any contract with the Canadians and told Congress he would veto any Bill that tried to circumvent him.
But that was in the past which, in its usually irritating way, has come back to haunt him. Since then there has been a midterm election at which the Dems lost much of their power in Congress. Even worse, in November a whole lot more of them will have to face the voters who are 'wailing and gnashing their teeth' at the price of fuel at the pumps. The Canadian product could almost free them from their reliance on Saudi oil. So suddenly a very large number of Dem Congressmen are withdrawing support from Obama's green stance and are voting in favour of a Republican motion to build the Keystone pipe-line.
As Rick Moran sums it up at The American Thinker:
If the environmental lobby wants to take Obama over a cliff, that's one thing. But the potency of Keystone as a campaign issue along with Obama's relative unpopularity in many red states where a Democrat is running for re-election has many Democrats nervous about the GOP making use of the issue.
The odds are pretty good that congress will send a pipeline bill to the president before the election. He will then have to decide whether to sign it, thus angering the greens, or veto it, thus angering everyone else.
Either way, it will be a big loss for the president.
Ah, shame!
The Chinese mirror - one-way, two-way or a three-fold mirror?
I am trying, in between my attempts to study pre-war Japanese society, to get to grips with the huge conundrum that is China today. To that end I have just read an article by Gordon G. Chang (who has figured on this blog before) in Forbes Magazine. In it, Mr. Chang maintains that it was not the CCP (Communist Party of China) that permitted the growth of free enterprise capitalism in China but the disobedience of ordinary people supported by local bureaucrats who turned a blind eye:
Deng [Xiaoping] began his tenure as China's paramount leader by adhering to orthodox communist economics and trying to implement a ten-year plan. Yet early failure to meet goals forced him to back away from command-economy tactics and permit individual initiative.
Peasants on large collective farms, for example, were allowed to form "work groups" to tend designated plots. Central policies, however, specifically prohibited these groupings from including just one family. But Beijing's policy did not last long: Families started to till their own land--and local officials condoned the clear violation of central rules.
Subterfuge on the farm was followed by subterfuge in the towns and cities. Private industry was strictly prohibited, but entrepreneurs flourished by operating their businesses as "red hat" collectives and enterprises--private companies operating under the guise of state ownership. Deng's reforms succeeded only because the Chinese people disobeyed Deng's rules.
The current leader, Premier Wen Jiabao, took fright in 2008 and ordered a massive stimulus policy. According to Mr. Chang, those particular chickens have now come home to roost in the form of inflation, wild stock market fluctuations and an eye-watering property bubble:
China now has all the high-speed rail lines to nowhere and "ghost cities" it can handle. And the country has more debt than it can pay back, especially at the provincial level. As economist Lang Hsien Ping says, every province in China is Greece. The country's debt-to-GDP ratio is about the same or worse than America's, depending on how Beijing's "hidden debt" is counted.
As I have remarked before, my own, utterly trustworthy, gut-instinct is not to believe a single piece of Chinese government economic data! Particularly as Mr. Chang brings bad news:
Today, however, China's leaders are on an antireform kick as they seek to bolster the prospects of massive state enterprises and restrict opportunities for foreign investors and domestic entrepreneurs. Especially since the middle of the last decade they have blocked acquisitions of local businesses by foreigners, increased state control of enterprises, employed predatory tactics against multinationals and diverted credit away from private enterprises. As they say in China these days, "The Communist Party is now the economy."
I would not, because I could not, argue with Mr. Chang's more expert knowledge of Chinese affairs but my impression from other news sources was the opposite, that the Chinese government was making moves to integrate further into global financial and trading systems. But what do I know? Don't answer that!
Vive La France - but not just yet!
According to all the experts, the Hungarian dwarf is in for a thrashing at the forthcoming electoral rounds in France. His main opponent, Francois Hollande, is expected to win and I certainly hope he does. Of course, you may construe my desire to inflict socialism on France is part of English animus against the French. This would be a mistake. Of course, I enjoy teasing the French, in exactly the same way they do us, but I like France and on my many visits there I have always found the French to be tres amiable. So why do I wish for the curse of socialism to hit them? Well, simply because Hollande is promising to take a severe line against the European Union, not least, the EU fiscal pact (or the German Iron Fist, as I like to think of it!) Apparently, Hollande is determined that everyone in France should retire at 60 and that millionaires must be taxed at 75%. Excellent news, just think how property prices will rise as they come over to London! Also, he is promising more public ownership, more government spending and, of course, more borrowing. Finally, he is threatening to veto the euro stability pact.
All of this will give the 'Kaiserin' (and Brussels) a severe headache, or at least, I hope it will. Again, the experts assume that relations between Mrs. Merkel and 'President' Hollande will be frosty, to say the least. However, one must remember that politicians' promises are as cheap as yesterday's fish. As Der Spiegel asks and answers:
Can Merkel and Hollande work together? The chancellor has given the Socialist candidate the cold shoulder for a long time but, in the meantime, her aides have carefully put out feelers. Hollande has responded by saying that, if elected, his first trip would be to Germany. The EU needs a German-French partnership during its deep crisis, he says.
Elmar Brok, a CDU politician and the chairman of the European Parliament's committee on foreign affairs, agrees. He maintains that German-French relations have never been especially influenced by the party affliations of the two countries' leaders. "Experience shows that other issues become more important, such as whether there is chemistry between the main players," he says.
In Brok's opinion, a partnership between Merkel and Hollande is possible. In the end, the conservative French President Giscard d'Estaing and the Social Democrat Chancellor Helmut Schmidt worked as closely together as the Socialist Francois Mitterrand did with Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl.
The French are facing the same problem we face in Britain - or will be facing in two or three years, that is, a supposedly Right-wing government that promised Right-wing policies but ratted us out. In their irritation with Sarkozy I suspect the French will take their revenge despite my suspicion that not too many of them are enthusiastic for more expensive socialism. However, they cannot allow Sarkozy, the promise breaker, another seven five years (I stand corrected by Pascal in the comments) because he will then take them for granted. That, I suspect, will be part of how the British public will feel when Cameron, another promise breaker, is forced to face his electorate. In both countries it will be interesting to see how well the small fringe parties do.
Incredible, I know, but I actually feel sorry for Theresa May
It's not often I feel sorry for politicians, least of all those as obviously useless as Theresa May, our 'not-fit-for-purpose' Home Secretary in charge of, but not in command of, our equally 'not-fit-for-purpose' Home Office. However, the current imbroglio over the deportation, or not, of 'Abra Cadabra', or whatever his wretched name is, has arisen over a very easily made error by one of Mrs. May's lawyers not by her. Be honest, did you know or remember that it was a Leap Year this year? I had forgotten, and obviously so had the legal not-very-smarty-pants lawyer who acted on Mrs. May's behalf. She, to her credit, has done the proper thing and refused to blame her officials (in public, anyway, but what was said in private is probably unpublishable!) and in parliament she accepted full responsibility. 'The law is an ass', as we all know, but it would be a pleasant surprise if the judges concerned, who must see the confusion was a tiny and very understandable human error, acted with commonsense and allowed the deportation to ensue. Unfortunately, these are foreign judges and one must assume that most of them have a deep and abiding animus against this country for a whole list of historical wrongs supposedly inflicted on them by us and will thus enjoy every moment of tweaking HMG by the nose. It simply leaves me wondering why the idiots in Westminster ever allowed such people to hold sway over our own home-grown 'Cocklecarrots' who, whilst equally dopey at times, are at least part of us!
Should foreigners be allowed to sue HMG?
I ask the question in the light of today's controversy over the Libyan who was, apparently, handed over to the former Libyan government where he was maltreated. He is now suing Jack Straw and planning to sue Tony Blair. I, too, would dearly love to sue both of those 'gentlemen' not for the same reason as 'Ahab the Arab', or whatever he's called, but "I have a little list" ready and waiting if any of m'Learned Friends are interested on a 'no win no fee' basis!
But back to the main point, is it right that foreigners should be allowed to sue ministers or ex-ministers for actions taken when they were in government? They say that diplomats are sent abroad to lie for their country and I think government ministers are appointed to be beastly to foreigners - as and when required by the interests of state. To be honest, I am somewhat pressed for time this morning and I confess not to have thought this through in any detail but provided that no personal interest is involved and that a minister is acting solely for reasons of state then he or she should be immune from legal action in our courts.
Am I wrong? Convince me!
(Sorry, still no sensible suggestions from TypePad so you will have to suffer with this miniscule font size for a little longer.)
(At last, it's fixed!)
Damn, that young Fraser Nelson beat me to it - again!
Why is it that I am perpetually beaten to the post? Just as a half-formed thought, usually a sort of mental burp, really, enters my noodle I think to myself, that might make a decent post on the blog. But when I eventually get round to it, usually several days if not weeks later, I find that everyone and his uncle has already said what I wished to say. Today, half watching an appalling PMQs, I suddenly remembered that the last time I had seen 'Dim' Dave's chubby-smug chops on my 'telly' it was when he was standing next to that rather lovely and very courageous Burmese lady, basking in her reflected glory. At the time, she looked vaguely embarrased by his complete and obvious lack of any glory whatsoever! Later on there were shots of him hobnobbing with sundry eastern potentates and we were assured by the 'smelly socks brigade' who accompanied him that Dave was out there roughing it in various presidential palaces as he sold 'Great Britain plc.'
My immediate thought was that Dave couldn't sell a heater to an eskimo! The wretched man has never held down a proper job in all his life, let alone a seriously difficult and demanding one like selling. My second thought was that a proper prime minister of Great Britain should not be involved in flogging various bits and pieces produced by what is laughingly known these days as 'British industry'. That task, after all, is the job of the companies concerned. They have a British embassy to assist with whatever British embassies actually do, and in the very last resort, God help them, they can always call on the services of a Trade minister who will, I'm sure, do everything of which he is capable - do stop sniggering at the back!
Anyway, before I get round to writing, up pops Fraser Nelson at The Coffee House and says more or less the same thing! Except that he actually backs it up with reports and results from various studies - swot! - such as:
A Canadian study into the visits of Stephen Harper's government (pdf) showed that – for all the hubris and politicians' vanity – they did squat for trade. They just took businessmen to sign deals that had been agreed already. [My emphasis] They are great lobbying opportunities for the businessmen, and they help the politician pose as the friend of business. But evidence of them helping exports? 'Small, negative and mainly insignificant effects'.
In other words, these ego trips are simply a means of escaping for a while the muck and bullets in Westminster and hopefully garnering a few good, but meaningless, headlines.
PS: Still waiting for TypePad to explain why the 'font size' control has disappeared so until then you will have to peer closely, I'm afraid, but try not to 'huff up' your screen! (19/4: fixed!)
When Japan went mad!
(Sorry for the tiny font size but TypePad is playing up! 19/4: fixed!)
I am refreshing what passes for my, er, you know, my, um . . . memory and also learning a few more things about Japan and the decision to go to war with the United States. There is no doubt in my mind that Hirohito was the luckiest war criminal of all time. He it was who with enormous and lengthy deliberation led his country into an utterly useless and disastrous war that it was bound to lose and who not only survived but continued his reign as emperor! I have remarked before on the similarities to the psychotic lunacy that gripped Wilhemine Germany in the early years of the 20th century but there was one huge difference. Virtually no-one in Germany questioned whether or not war was the right policy and, equally, hardly anyone doubted that Germany would win. But in Japan, the top High Command was riddled with doubters. IN 1940, Yamamoto, the naval strategist (and near genius - only 'near' because he lost!), said this:
In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success. (*)
His views were widely shared throughout Japanese government circles both military and civilian, and yet and yet, they still went to war.
To be fair, it was, to use the words of the dear old 'Duke of Boot' describing his own victory at Waterloo, "A fine run thing, the finest thing you ever saw" using the word 'fine', of course, in the old sense of 'close'. Pearl Harbour was an unmitigated disaster for the Japanese. There were only two real objectives in that surprise attack - the aircraft carriers and the dock installations. The former had been shifted out by orders from Washington where the likelihood of war was well known, if not the details; and the latter were largely missed by the attacking aircrews who wasted their time sinking old and virtually useless battleships.
Six months later, after the inconclusive skirmish in the Coral Sea, the one truly crucial and historic battle was fought at Midway. The irony drips from the telling when I remind you that Midway is, in the scale of the Pacific Ocean, the tiniest of insignificant specks consisting, as it does, of two microscopic coral shoals barely large enough to get a runway on one of them. Midway was Yamamoto's next strategic aim. In attacking them he was certain the Americans would have to commit the carriers he had missed before and in doing so he would trap them and destroy them. Having cleared the Pacific of American carriers and with Midway occupied, the approaches to Hawaiian Islands were wide open. They would be easily taken and then the next target was Panama. This would pose an enormous threat to the southern States of America and in order to defend themselves they would be forced to withdraw support from Britain in its fight against Germany.
So everything, and I do mean absolutely everything, depended on the battle of Midway. That the Americans won was due in large part to colossal luck and to heroism of the very highest order. I stress that because the courage required by the aircrews of the attacking American planes was of the cold and calculated variety. They knew, even before they reached their target, that they simply did not have enough fuel to get back to safety. And the crews of the later torpedo formations also knew that their chances of surviving the attack as they lumbered slowly and at low level towards the massed anti-aircraft fire from the Japanese fleet, to say nothing of the Zero fighters screaming in at them from above, was virtually nil. As one writer(*) put it, the Japanese were not the first to invent the kamikaze attack!
So the Japanese lost but at this point, like their German counterparts who saw the (modified) von Schlieffen plan fail in 1914, the Emperor and his High C0mmand refused to face the inevitable and chose to waste millions of lives rather than lose face.
(*) Japan's Imperial Conspiracy: How Emperor Hirohito led Japan into war against the West by David Bergamini
Mad or bad?
The Breivik case in Norway resurrects some old questions like is he mad or is he bad? I hesitate to enter the fray because it is a quagmire of language, meaning, pseudo-science, legalese and good, old-fashioned gut-feelings, still, let's give it a try.
I would start by accepting that insanity does exist. If a man regularly dresses up as Napoleon and insists that everyone refer to him as 'Emperor' then he is insane, or demented, or irrational to the point where his actions are no longer his responsibility. In other words, his conduct is not freely chosen from a list of alternatives, he is merely a puppet subject to the delusion with which he suffers. Do you lock him up? Well, I would suggest that it depends on whether his actions are likely to hurt him or others.
But if a man goes out and shoots dead 77 strangers, is he mad? You might say that such behaviour is as demented and irrational as 'Napoleon', above. But is it? Lots of people for different reasons have gone out and killed strangers en masse. We briefly considered Che Guevara yesterday and he was but a mere apprentice in the killing game. The reason that lies behind their mass murdering activities is claimed to be politics, as though that made a difference!
Breivik uses politics as his excuse. In doing so he exhibits rational, you might call it super-rational, thinking. He views the world about him and comes to some conclusions which are not without foundation. He thinks - and I stress the word deliberately - that his country in particular and Europe in general is under threat from an Islamist invasion. You may disagree with him but it is not an irrational opinion because it can be backed up by facts and figures. (That does not make it true, of course, because there will be contradictory facts and figures to take into account. My point is that it indicates a thinking, rational man at work.) He comes to the conclusion that an act of what I can only describe as "shock 'n' awe" is required in order to bring about a radical shift in political opinion and activity. Again, in political circles that is hardly an original strategy!
One other thing must be borne in mind when pondering these difficulties. I am happy to state with complete conviction that the vast majority of psychiatry is pseudo-science. Psychology, as a description of general human behaviour has merit - but only applies in the general and hardly ever in the particular. The fact that these useless disciplines have maintained an influential grip on judges and juries is one of the more malignant characteristics of our current legal system.
In my view, Breivik is bad not mad and should be 'hung by the neck until he be dead' to use an old phrase I would dearly love to see return.
What do Brussels and Pyongyang have in common?
Answer: Neither of them could get a helium balloon off the ground!
I say that because the North Koreans under the inspired leadership of their new, young Dear Leader, Bil-lee Bun-ta,
attempted to launch the ballistic missile equivalent of a Morris Marina with predictable results. According to Wiki, "the Marina was one of the worst cars of all time"!
In the meantime, you may remember that the 'Euro-Bats' threw a hissy-fit when the American ratings agencies began downgrading sundry financial basket-cases in the euro-currency group including La not-so-Belle France. Cue an enormous pile of 'merdes' and 'zut alors' to say nothing of several 'schweinehunds' and with all the predictability of German tanks heading for Warsaw some dimwit suggested that Europe must have its own ratings agency in order to ensure that European nations, and companies, had a fair assessment.
With a chorus of 'superbes' and 'wunderbars' a German financial wizard was given the task of setting it up - roughly the equivalent of getting a Morris Marina to win the British Grand Prix! Needless to say, as Der Spiegel reports:
The newspaper reported that Roland Berger no longer expects to be able to raise the €300 million ($390 million) in start-up capital required for the project. Berger had pinned its hope on support mainly from big German and French banks but has met with little interest so far. Many potential investors doubted whether the investment model could work.
Apparently, potential investors thought "the close relationship of the planned agency with European governments was regarded as a problem right from the outset". No! Non! Nein! It wouldn't be bent like that, would it?
Well, who'da thunk it?!
The Monday competition!
See if you can spot the slightest difference between these two men:
CHE BREIVIK:
Photo courtesy of The Daily Telegraph
ANDERS GUEVARA:
No, me neither! Except, of course, that one is reviled and despised and the other is an iconic hero to every brain-dead university student and soppy Leftie in the world!
Beauty and death
I promised a beauty competition when my e-pal, DM, suggested that the wartime Mosquito aircraft ran the Spitfire very close in terms of pure beauty. So here are some pics of them both, plus, another contender, in my opinion, the P-38 Lightening. You choose:
This photo shows the proportions perfectly, and also the way in which the wings sweep forward in contrast to the tail. I'm not sure if it is so but it always looks as though the distance from wing tip to wing tip is slightly longer than the length of the fuselage which adds to its elegance. Here's a similar picture of a Hurricane which was, I believe, generally reckoned to be a better fighting platform but when it comes to beauty it just lacks the deadly elegance of the Spitfire:
And here is DM's Mosquito bomber. Very fast, very accurate and only a crew of two. Some people say that if Bomber Command had used them instead of the huge, lumbering and vulnerable Lancaster the bombing campaign would have been much more effective and the casualty rates, in the air and on the ground in Germany, would have been considerably less:
Here's another contender, the menacing P-38 Lightening. I simply do not know how effective it was as a fighter but it looks beautiful:
Anyway you choose and if you have any other beauty contestants let me know and I will try and dig up some photos - but remember, they must be WWII aircraft.
I'm off to cut the grass in the Churchyard so I will look in later.
Do NOT miss this under any circs!
And that's an order! Next Monday (tomorrow) and Tuesday on Sky Arts 2 they are showing the filmed performance at The Globe of Henry IV, parts I and II with the best Falstaff I have ever seen - Roger Allam. Seeing the real thing was, I think, the best two nights of my theatrical experience but this film of a live performance is damned near as good. This is as near as you will ever get to seeing Shakespeare performed the way Shakespeare himself would have seen it. If you haven't got Sky then send 'Rupe' some money - quick! - or ask a friend to record it for you.
In fact it is a Shakespeare week on Sky Arts 2 so there are several other goodies to be viewed.
I haven't indulged in a Sunday rumble for some time. For newcomers, what happens is that instead of droning on and on, and then on for a bit more, on one subject, I sit here scratching myself and emitting short burps in different directions on different subjects.
Titanic RIP: And, boy oh boy, do I mean REST in peace! I don't know about you but I am sick to death of all this Titanic stuff, there seems to be no end to it. Of course, there are no really decent wars or famines going on at the moment and so the MSM, bless their smelly socks, have nothing else to waste their ink or their running time on. Of course, it's worth a pause and a quick thought or three but not his constant ghoulish obsession.
Darlings, I was wonderful! I know you have all been on tenterhooks wanting to know how my rehearsals went for the important, nay, critical, role of Abhorson in Shakespeare's wonderful play Ye Olde Mysterie of Abhorson, ooops, Measure for Measure. I think I can say with all modesty that I was a tremendous success. The rest of the cast, including my understudy, who have been rehearsing the play for some time now were left in stunned silence at the end of my two scenes and one was heard to mutter, "Darling, wonderful isn't the word!" Of course, it remains a mystery to me as to why the Bard in all his wisdom chose to give quite so many scenes to that bloody nun and Duke but that's the problem with writers, they never listen to actors!
China again - but no politics: I missed the first half of the Chinese Grand Prix because I was swimming - oh, by the way, have I mentioned that I - oh, right - I have - fine, move on then, shall I? - anyway, I caught the last half and it was the best F1 race I hace seen for some time. Many moons ago, in part of my rickety-rackety life, I was involved with one of the F1 teams and spent some time following 'the circus' round Europe. As a man whose interest in cars has always rested somewhere on the minus scale I was surprised to find myself rather hooked on it. However, like a lot of sports, you really do need to be there. The sheer brute power of those machines can only be appreciated up close and personal, as it were. Even so, today's race was terrific. I think only one driver fell out and the remainder were really racing - at one stage there were three cars side by side hurtling towards a corner - exciting stuff and the fact that no-one was shunted off is a magnificent tribute to the skill of the drivers. If you can catch a late recording of the race, watch it! One oddity, I noticed, was the very low turnout of spectators. I can't believe the Chinese are not interested. Perhaps the organisers priced it too high, or perhaps times are beginning to get hard in China.
Prize-winning humbuggery: I am grateful to my e-pal, Dom, who responded to my post on just one of the reasons why Obama and his wrecking crew need to go. I reported, with glee, the tale of that intrepid investigator, James O'Keefe, who managed to waltz in to a voting office and obtain Attorney-General John Holder's voting ballot because, in line with government policy, no ID was required. All American Left-wing opinion and organisations are resolutely opposed to making voter ID a requirement and you do not need to be Brain of America to guess why. Anyway, Dom sent me a film from the admirable PJTV who despatched reporters to various bastions of liberal organisations including, of course, John Holder's department and none were permitted to enter without proof of identity. Watch the film - but have a sick-bucket to hand!
Will 'Dim Dave' make it to the next election? All prime ministers go through a period of squalls and showers but usually they are confined to the perceived differences between them and their electorate. The difference today is that Cameron is losing, at an accelerating rate, the support of his own backbenchers and his party workers. They are catching up with what this erudite blog has been telling them for the last two years, that Cameron simply isn't very bright. He's an Old Etonian twit with absolutely no political philosophy - and not only do I doubt he would understand what that meant, I doubt he could even spell it! According to various reports, which began as whispers but are now being spoken out loud, he disdains the so-called 'worker bees' who keep the Tory party running in the country and surrounds himself with ex-public schoolboys of his own ilk. He has never run anything in his life - and it's beginning to show. So I ask, will he make it to the next election? And if he's knifed in the back, who will play Brutus?
A deadly beauty: In the history of warfare was there ever a more beautiful but deadly weapon designed than the Vickers Supermarine Spitfire? Even to today it still looks lethal.
I am thrilled that we have cut a deal with the Burmese government to extract the twenty Spitfires which were buried there at the end of WWII. If they can be restored they will be worth a fortune and what I hope is that the government will sell off some of them to provide a trust fund to keep, say, three of them in Britain as a heritage project. If 'Dim Dave' does that I will forgive him his many sins!
Theatre's great gain, your sad loss!
Darlings, farewell! I am away today and tomorrow in order to rehearse my star role of Abhorson the executioner in Shakespeare's play Measure for Measure Ye Olde Mysterie of Abhorson - to give it its proper title. I shall return on Saturday. Until then, play amongst yourselves but leave the place tidy!
This is why the whole rotten Obama crew must go
James O'Keefe first came to my attention via Fox News last year when he and a female associate dressed, spoke and acted like a pimp with his prostitute and entered an Acorn office looking for accommodation from which they could operate. Acorn is a Left-wing community organisation which agitates and operates across America. As a result of O'Keefe's exposure which showed Acorn workers happy to assist in this enterprise Congress cut their funding and the organisation went broke, although various parts of it still operate.
Last week O'Keefe pulled off another exposure by having himself filmed entering a Washington, DC polling station at 3401 Nebraska Avenue, NW. This just happens to be the electoral district for the current Attorney General, John Holder. He, you will remember is the man who refused to act against Black Panthers despite their demonstrable criminal acts, and who also oversaw teh disasterous 'Fast & Furious' operation which allowed hundreds of automatic weapons to be passed to the Mexican drug cartels.
Anyway, O'Keefe, with magnificent aplomb, presented himself on election day and stated that his name was John Holder and gave Holder's address. Without any hesitation the electoral official gave him Holder's voting card. O'Keefe pretended surprise and asked if he shouldn't provide some sort of proof of identity but no, the official insisted that wasn't necessary and waved him through.
The problem of voter fraud which is now conducted on an almost industrial scale throughout America is a huge current scandal which is forcing some States to pass laws insisting that voters must show some sort of proof of identity before they receive a voting card. The Democrat party who rely to an enormous extent on voter fraud amongst the poorer sections of most big cities are refusing to consider a change to the Constitution which would make proof of identity a Federal law.
One might hope that Obama being a Marxist sympathiser as well as, by now, an obvious dummy would be enough for Americans to boot him out, but his wilful refusal to countenance any action against this malignant corruption at the very heart of American democracy should be the clincher. But will it?
Rendition - Elizabethan style!
Of course, I refer to the first Elizabeth not the kind, grandmotherly lady who adorns our throne today. This from Ian Mortimer's 'must-read' book The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England which will tell you in engrossing detail how life was lived - and lost - in those more robust times:
Consider the case of Dr. John Story, a Catholic lawyer and MP, who is locked up in 1563 after speaking some poorly chosen words against the queen. Escaping by night and reaching the Spanish ambassador's residence, he manages to slip the country and flee to the Netherlands. There the duke of Alba appoints him to search all vessels coming from England, and Story assiduously combs every English ship for Protestant letters, books and messages. The zeal with which he conducts his work leads him to becoming the leader of a group of émigré Catholic activists, and more than just a minor irritant to the English merchants trading with the Low Countries. [Sir William] Cecil therefore decides to take action. In 1570 he sends agents to Dr. Story who win his trust. They join him in searching English boats, until one day they lead him onto a boat whose captain has been primed. Dr Story is seized, taken to England and handed over to the privy council for interrogation and trial. Found guilty of high treason, he is drawn, hanged and quartered. 'Black operations' such as this, in which government agents seize residents in a foreign country and subject them to rendition, torture and eath, have a long pedigree.
Tut, tut, who'da thunk it?! Not that 'good Queen Bess' didn't sometimes live up to her image:
On July 1579 a young man named Thomas Appletree is fooling about with some friends in a boat on the Thames near Greenwich. He has a loaded gun, which to the great amusement of the party he fires three or four times at random. Unknown to him, the glass-sided royal barge is slowly floating towards them. The queen is aboard, discussing with the French ambassador the possibility of her marrying the duke of Anjou, when one of Appletree's bullets strikes the helmsman six feet from her and leaves him lying on his back bleeding profusely. The queen tosses the injured man her scarf and tells him to be of good cheer: the bullet was surely meant for her and the fact that it struck him is good news, for the assassin had failed. Later, there is a thorough investigation, and Appletree is soon found. He confesses and is duly condemned to death for endangering the queen's life. A gallows is set up on the bank of the river so that he may be hanged close to the scene of his crime. Before his execution, Appletree makes a speech to the assembled crowds. He is no traitor, he says, but admits that through his carelessness he had endangered the life of the sovereign and therefore deserves to diw. When he has said goodbye to his friends, the hangman places the noose over his head. Just then, when he is on the very brink of death, a man in the crowd steps forward with a pardon from the queen. She knows Appletree is just a silly young man, but he had to be taught a lesson.
So, not only were the dark arts of the security services in operation 450-odd years ago but so were the ones of the public relations industry, too!
And now it begins
Well, actually, it began some time ago but why deprive me of a dramatic heading? I am referring to a story in the WSJ which is but the latest in a gathering storm cloud of territorial disputes between China and its neighbours:
The Philippine government said its newest warship is locked in a standoff with two Chinese surveillance vessels in a fresh dispute over fishing rights in the resource-rich South China Sea, potentially escalating an already-tense security environment in the contested region.
China's claim over the entire South China sea is longstanding and certain to cause more difficulties. Apart from fishing there are big prospects for oil and gas, to say nothing of its strategic importance:
The two navies engaged each other after the Philippine vessel—a former Coast Guard cutter provided by the U.S. Navy—attempted to arrest the crew of several Chinese fishing boats who were anchored at Scarborough Shoal, off the Philippines' northwest coast but which is also claimed by China. The Philippine government said Chinese surveillance vessels intervened to prevent any arrests, leading to the standoff, and that Filipino sailors who inspected the Chinese vessels on Tuesday found illegally collected corals and live sharks in one of the fishing boats.
China is locked in a series of overlapping territorial disputes with the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei, who claim either all or part of the South China Sea as their sovereign territory. The dispute has flared in recent months as the region's potential energy reserves begin to draw growing attention.
Over the past year, Vietnam and the Philippines have accused Chinese navy craft of harassing oil-exploration vessels operating in their United Nations-defined maritime economic zones. Beijing has denied that, but has warned Vietnam and the Philippines from prospecting in the area without its permission.
This is precisely the sort of situation which will test American diplomacy and will demand from the State Department both a long-term strategic aim combined with the ability to deal with short-term disputes like this one involving the Philippines. They do have some advantages because already the smaller nations on the Pacific rim are beginning to combine with each other to resist Chinese ambitions:
The Philippines is also working on developing a closer relationship with Vietnam.
Previously there was relatively little contact between the two countries, but now there is a growing military-to-military relationship that might soon result in the two countries holding formal exercises, or at least joint search-and-rescue training, diplomats say.
In addition, the Philippines has proposed holding soccer matches between Filipino and Vietnamese troops on some of the contested atolls in the South China Sea. Philippine Admiral Alexander Pama Tuesday told reporters the Philippines has suggested sending some sailors and troops to Vietnamese-occupied islands, while Vietnamese troops could visit Philippine-held islands. Adm. Pama said it could be called the "fun games," and stressed there would be no firearms training involved.
America should encourage such moves whilst trying their best not to arouse Chinese fears of encirclement. The Americans have already acted quite properly in one way by insisting on a point of principle:
The U.S., too, has angered China in stating that the South China Sea, which carries about half the world's trade, remains free for navigation.
These and other high-risk disputes will almost certainly recur on a regular basis over the next few decades. Let's all hope that cool minds are applied rather than hot, foolish heads!
Oh, buggeration!
I can only repeat the immortal words that made Victor Meldrew the hero of the elderly classes - "I don't belieeeeeve it!" Every morning I totter up the stairs and trawl through the long list of blogs I read regularly. I do this on semi-automatic with thumb up bum and mind in neutral. Today I was reminded by Richard North at EU Referendum that he had changed his domain and so I set about removing his old link from my 'Blogs General' list and replacing it with the new. Result? I have wiped the entire list of blogs that I have carefully built up over the years. Now I have to start all over again and try to remember their names which can be a bit of a 'prob' for an old boy who can't even reecall the name of the bloke in the shaving mirror every morning! Oh, buggeration!
Osborne is either a liar or a fool - or maybe both!
According to all the 'prints' this morning, George Osborne, our Chancellor of the Excheqer, for God's sake, is "shocked" at the many nefarious ways in which rich men avoid tax. According to The Telegraph he said:
"I was shocked to see that some of the very wealthiest people in the country have organised their tax affairs, and to be fair it's within the tax laws, so that they were regularly paying virtually no income tax. And I don't think that's right.
"I'm talking about people right at the top. I'm talking about people with incomes of many millions of pounds a year. The general principle is that people should pay income tax and that includes people with the highest incomes."
Upon which planet, do you suppose, has Mr. Osborne has been residing for all of his adult life? And do you think a man of such obvious and almost total ignorance should hold the highest financial position in the land? Would you even allow him to be a tax inspector? In fact, would he even qualify as one of the pox-doctors' clerks on job experience programmes who man most of the desks in the Inland Revenue? I don't think so, given his early work experience, as reported by Wiki, which seems to show that he began as a clerk, went down to being a 'towel folder' and then sank to the lowest level of all, Tory Central Office:
Osborne's first job was entering the names of people who had died in London into a National Health Service computer.[11] He also briefly worked for Selfridges, re-folding towels.[11] He originally intended to pursue a career in journalism, but instead got a job at Conservative Central Office.[11]
Or, perhaps, the alternative is true, that Mr. George Osborne, privately educated with a degree from Oxford, is simply a good, old-fashioned, born-again, lying liar only fit to flog second-hand Bentleys in Berkely Square. If so, what else can I do but join him in saying, "I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!"
Never go back!
This has been a firm belief of mine ever since I made the mistake 40-odd years ago of paying a return visit to my old school. Quite the most unsettling, disturbing action I ever took. Perhaps I should make clear that I mean returning after a long interval is bad, regular returns are easier.
I am reminded of this by reading Ian Mortimer's superb book The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England. As something of a Shakespeare fan I have often wondered (or perhaps wondered 'many a time and oft''!) what life was like in Stratford and London in those times? Well, based on Mortimer's description the only words that spring to mind are 'bloody awful'! Life, compared to today, was lived at snail's pace. For everyone, bar the wealthy, if you wanted to go anywhere you walked - and walking in those days was definitely not a pleasure! Water was scarce and had to be queued for and then carried. You dare not drink it! In the cities and towns the stench was abominable. Personal hygiene was minimal to nil the further down the social scale you went and it wasn't too brilliant amongst the upper classes.
If today you are worried about HMG storing your e-mails, then Elizabethan England is not for you. Attendence at Church every Sunday and Holy Days was compulsory and absence was always reported by vigilant priests or nosey neighbours and the result, at best, was a hefty fine. If your were Catholic - God help you! And if the government didn't get you then the plague or general starvation during bad harvest times would. If you were tempted to get away from it all by running off to sea, forget it! A sailor's life was such that I suspect the near certainty of an early and unpleasant death was actually a comfort!
No, I think I'll stick to the 21st century and if Mortimer's descriptions are accurate - and I am certain they are - then I promise never to complain about anything ever again. (Well, up until my next blog post, I suppose!) One thing's for sure, you can stick 'Merrie Olde England' where the sun don't shine!
Treat yourself to Mortimer's book, it is truly fascinating.
Things to do on a holiday weekend
Well, I expect you have your things to do and for sure I have my things and never the twain will meet, I guess, particularly given that my entire weekend so far has been given over to designing a new PowerPoint talk on the subject of - wait for it - How the Japanese Lost WWII in the First Six Months!
Alright, I have said before, many a time and oft', that everyman's hobby is a total mystery to every other man. But in this case several strands have linked in my life to bring about this particular hobby. First, as you all know, I have a tendency to bore! (I don't know why I put that doubt-inducing exclamation mark at the end because the fact is that I do like to hear the sound of my own voice or to read my own scribblings.) Second, a sort of miracle has occurred in that a technophobe like me - no, that's not quite accurate, I think technoprat is better - has managed, against all odds, to master PowerPoint. Each time I design a new slide filled with ever-more jazzy, snazzy tricks of the trade, I giggle and chortle in total childish pleasure which you will understand better when I tell you that in this house it's the 'Memsahib' who changes electric plugs - on 'elf 'n' safety' grounds!
Finally, of course, the subject matter of most of my talks is history, mostly military history, by which I am endlessly fascinated. It is all so much more satisfying than current affairs because you know the ending! Also, finding out the details of the colossal bollocks dropped by so many 'Very Important People' who are all supposed to be so much cleverer than me is deliciously satisfying. Reading of their errors of omission and commission one feels, with absolute certainty, that one could have done so much better had one been in charge at the time!
As you regulars will know, one of my pet subjects has been the lead up to war between Wilhemine Germany and Great Britain at the beginning of the 20th century. The similarities between those unhappy events and the equally disasterous ones which occurred between Japan and the USA in the 1930s and early '40s is enough to make you weep. Surely, you are tempted to moan, the fools could have seen where it would all end. But they didn't, and that's history, and that's what makes it, for me anyway, totally fascinating. It is also, and I cannot stress this strongly enough, absolutely contemporary. America is facing yet another burgeoning Oriental state with the mother of all inferiority complexes and enough historical resentments to keep them belligerent for decades. It is imperative that presidents and secretaries of state, both now and in the future, read up on their history books and understand what went wrong in the past. Of course, I know this blog is read avidly in the White House and has its own file in the HQ of the CIA, so let me just say that I am available to provide some of my lectures if the Dean of History at Harvard is otherwise occupied. Usual terms, of course!
Anyway, enough of this prattle, the 'Cecil B. de Mille of PowerPoint' has work to do!
The view from the dugout
As you all know, this blog spares no effort to keep you bang up to date with all the news even, or especially, 'footie' news. Hence, I can report today from the dugout at Manchester United, which I am sharing with a rather bad-tempered old Scotch git, that there is tremendously bad news for fans of the 'reds'. As I reported some time ago, Mr. Wayne Rooney, the star of the team, spent several zillion pounds in a vain effort (pun intended!) to hide his premature baldness. However, today, as I sit here at the edge of the pitch - oh alright then, on the edge of my favourite armchair in my living room - I can report that there are new signs of further baldness appearing. Emergency applications of 'Growmore' are obviously required. This sad development could have traumatic effects on both the team as well as Mr. Rooney - and the gum-chewing old Scotsman looks even more ferociously bad-tempered than usual!
What was that? What about the match, did you ask? I don't know! After 20 minutes the ref gave someone a red card so the whole thing was ruined. And anyway, I'm off out for a late lunch at my favourite pub restaurant which serves the best beef - ever! And, no, I am not prepared to disclose the name of it even under water-boarding - although a few crisp 'readies' in the usual brown envelope might change my mind.
Schrödinger's pussy!
Well, I knew Schrödinger was pussy-mad because he kept banging on about that poor old pussy that he insisted be locked up in a box until some particle - or was it a wave? - anyway, something happened down at the really, really titchy level of existence and either poor old Tibby was dead or she was alive and no-one would know until they opened the box. He won a Nobel prize for that but frankly I would have thought it was dead obvious - no pun intended!
However, according to a review by Nicholas Blincoe(*) of John Gribbin's latest book, "Erwin Schrödinger and the Quantum Revolution", the rascal kept forgetting High Science and instead went looking for Low Pussy! Very low, in fact, because at one stage he fancied his neighbour's 14-year-old daughter, he impregnated a famous actress of the day and had to be warned off the 12-year-old niece of a friend!
I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked - but suddenly quantum physics has become just that bit more interesting!
(*) Blincoe's review is in today's Daily Telegraph but there does not appear to be a link at the moment.
(**) Via the comments below, Nicholas Blincoe has kindly sent the link to his review:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/9188438/Erwin-Schrodinger-and-the-Quantum-Revolution-by-John-Gribbin-review.html
To my Commenters
I gather some of you have had difficulty posting your comments. This is a message I have sent to TypePad:
AGAIN - my commenters are complaining that their comments are not going through!
Also, those bloody, bloody, bloody Google CAPTCHA words are indecipherable and the sound is inaudible. To be frank, I would rather put up with the occasional bit of spam than spend half an hour tilting my head this way and that trying to work out what they are!
This, needless to say, will have exactly nil effect! However, if it occurs again - and it will - please e-mail your comments to me and I will publish them myself. I have posted successfully two 'test' comments and it seems to be OK now.
Here's what Kissinger and I mean!
It is with my usual irony that I include myself alongside the name of one of the great political thinkers of our age, Henry Kissinger. As I mentioned in a previous post, Kissinger appears to be in favour of a nuanced relationship with the 'new' China. The reviewer of his recent book, On China, Gordon Chang (of whom I had never heard but who by coincidence I saw interviewed on Fox News yesterday) was dismissive of such an approach and called for trenchant opposition. A timely article in the WSJ explains why that sort of muscular diplomacy will not be helpful.
The report confirms other indications that there is a power struggle going on in China between (and I use these terms very loosely) the 'Mao-ists' and the 'modernisers'. The former yearn for a return to absolute Party rule in the Mao-ist style. My two earlier posts, here and here, on the sacking of a senior member of the ruling Polit-Bureau, Bo Xilai, a 'Mao-ist' by inclination, might well have been part of this struggle between the two factions. Last week, in a further indication of movement within the supposed monolith, the outgoing prime minister, Wen Jiabao, called for a major shake-up[ in the system governing the four major, state-owned and controlled banks. According to the WSJ report:
"Let me be frank. Our banks earn profit too easily. Why? Because a small number of large banks have a monopoly," said Mr. Wen, according to the transcript of the program on the broadcaster's website. "To break the monopoly, we must allow private capital to flow into the finance sector."
Mr. Wen's comments tap into a rich vein of popular anger against China's biggest banks that has been building in recent months online and in the media.
The backlash was initially prompted by frustration at what has been perceived as banks' payments of low interest rates on deposits and indiscriminate levying of fees. It has worsened in recent weeks as lenders posted record profits, even as the economy slows and some companies struggle to access credit.
Needless to say, the words "private capital" are obscenities to the 'Mao-ists'. But as always, 'economics rule OK' and the more perceptive in the Chinese government, to say nothing of the millions of private businessmen, realise that the old model is stuttering and that change is needed:
The country's economic expansion is set to slow in coming years after racing ahead at a torrid pace over the past decade, raising questions over whether China can switch from a model based on exports and investment to one that relies more on a rising consumer culture.
That has led to a nationwide conversation over China's tight grip on its financial system, which favors big state-owned firms but has been criticized by economists and even some reformers in China for impeding more balanced growth.
Many in China now believe a crisis will come without economic reform.
I would also remind you of an even earlier post on this blog (my God, what a mine of information it is, you lucky people!) when I reminded you that a new president is due to take over shortly. He, Mr. Xi Jinping, is one of those new 'international' Chinese, that is, a man who is an entirely patriotic Chinaman but one who has lived and studied abroad, in his case, America. On his recent low-key visit he made a point of returning to the American family who housed him in his student days. This man is a quiet 'moderniser' who has slowly but surely built his political base and has now risen, apparently effortlessly, to the very top. There are others like him, I am sure, but it is difficult for outsiders to identify them. Equally, I am absolutely certain that there are a considerable number in the 'Mao-ist' opposition. Not least, of course, the Chinese army. One must always be surprised at any signs of political intelligence in any army at any time because of its rarity. The Chinese army is now more powerful than at any time in its history and like soldiers everywhere they will be eager for battles in which they can prove themselves and win laurels.
Given that situation you can see the wisdom of Kissinger's nuanced approach. Yes, there may be a need 'to draw lines in the sand' but considerable thought needs to be applied as to exactly where and how deep they are drawn! This will require the application of a prolonged and steady American diplomatic campaign backed by the very best and shrewdest thinkers on grand geo-strategy that they possess. Are there any? I don't know. Time alone will tell.
Beat the bureaucrats!
Apparently, the pecksniffs and pox-doctors' clerks who man our so-called Civil Service are fed up with having their tea breaks and extended lunches interfered with by members of the public asking them what they're doing. No doubt with the encouragement of their political 'masters' (heh, heh, who believes it's really that way round?) there are moves afoot to charge us if we have the temerity to ask questions under The Freedom of Information Act. Happily, an e-petition has been raised to urge the government not to go down this path to the neutering sheds! It is worth recording the words of our, admittedly less than great, prime minister, "We want to be the most open and transparent government in the world." So give him a nudge and sign the petition, here. Also, a quick letter or e-mail to your MP would not go amiss. If you have a blog then please spread the word.
Thanks top 'Bishop Hill'.
Here speaks your typical British 'Tom'
I have copied this in total from today's edition of The Independent. It is impossible to paraphrase it. It is the authentic 'voice' of a British 'Tom' complete with bad language and even worse spelling and grammar. Much the same might have been written by his counterparts in the Lines of Torres Vedras, the first, and second, Afghan Wars, from a trench at the Somme or a tank lager in the western desert in 1942, or even before the attack on Goose Green in the Falklands.
From The Independent:
In the spring of this year, the 2nd Battalion, The Rifles deployed to Afghanistan. Halfway through the battalion's tour, it has lost nine soldiers, with dozens injured.
Of those to have given their lives, four were teenagers. Here Rifleman Cyrus Thatcher, who was 19 when he was killed by an explosion near Gereshk seven weeks ago, tells his own story, through letters home and the last letter he left behind to bid farewell to his family – his mother Helena, father Robin and brothers Zac, 21, and Steely, 17.
Following are the words of a proud soldier described by his officers as possessing "a rucksack full of potential", and by his friends as a rascal always cracking jokes and helping to keep morale high. Most of all, they are the words of a young son to his mum, dad and brothers.
Terri Judd
Hello Mum
I've just got your bluey [letter] (the 1st one) yea you are right it does get fucking hot, I can't work out wether I'm tanned or just burnt to fuck!! I've spoke to you on the phone so you no what I've been doing. I'm well proud of you loosing all that weight. Suppose you've got a pretty good insentive. We'v had the same shit maybe a month now. Everyday a Monday out here. You kind of loose track of days. I cant quite work out if its going fast or slow. This pen is shit its doing my head in!!
Iv been thinking of loads of things and places to do, go and see. Me and Elliott are gonna go to Amsterdam after this. THINK WE MAY HAVE DESERVED IT!! It should be a good day (November 5th) [their homecoming parade]. On the 6th we can go Belfast Iv'e got loads of sad things I wanna buy ie Sky+ Big TV. Get the old man to help me rearange my room and help me fix my shelves. Im not the DIY type normally resort to celler tape or blue tack. HA HA HA. Hope everyones safe at home. Complete detox out here – water no drink. So my dance moves might involve a bit of stumbling when I return! Im coming home 2 weeks earlier now so that's kinda good, it might be worth Zac picking me up give me a bit of chill out time so I don't try stab a gobby civvi plus he's a good listener, sumtimes I wonder if he's listening or thinking of sumthing completely irrelivant.
Well pass this round the family so they can all admire my extream spelling (infantry eh!). Lots of love to all the nearest and dearest. Love Ya!! Xxxx
Hey Mum + family
Ill always address my letters to you cuz I no your probley the only one who gets to the mail!! You'll have to let me no how quick these are getting you ill keep writing the date?? Everything is good up this way getting hotter, still moving at a million miles per hour (HA HA HA) I think Iv'e stopped burning Im slowly going brown and my hair is getting ridiculous just wait till I come home ill look like a fucking wooky?! I was gonna write to granny + grandad but to be honest with the few spare hours I get Id'e rather write home ey? BTW send my regards to Daphne, Joan, Brian etc. Let em no how Im doing?
Every so often we get old people and churches send us little gifts like baby wipes, razors, sweets and stuff so its quite a good bit of moral. Got some really good photos ill have to bring my camera back so we can get that Kosovo collage on the go, to bring back on the 5th of November. If you saw what and where Ive been sleeping you would be shocked!! So pictures will back me up!
Unfortunately 3 blokes died 2 days ago in an IED explosion in one of the FOBs [Forward Operating Bases] bout 2 kilometers away – we visited that FOB 2 days before the attack – fucking mental quite scary actually! We'v had a rest day so Im doing a bit of hand washing and fitness! God you'd be so proud Ha! Ha! Ha! We've still had spam, rice, beans and unflavoured noodles every day – promise me actually I promise you if I see spam in the house ill fucking destroy it!! Im getting pretty good at making flat bread and we bout a goat of a local for 200 dollars and we slaughtered it. I got a good video. Its either catch it, kill it, or make it out here or else you go hungry LOL!! The showers are also freezing whilst Im on the subject of moaning?? Id'e best go again BUT ill keep writing when I get the time + ill be home in a couple of months. Love you'zzz all don't worry bout me to much. Theres only 3 things that kill people over hear BULLETS, BOMBS + EGOS so I might go down with a bad case of swollen head!! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Love ya xxxxx
Hello Mother
Yesterday was a massive day for moral an american chopper came in yesterday. I got 5 blueys one from Zac, Daphne, I think Sharpie sent one and Dad?? With some pictures that was great. I stared at them for about an hour I cant explain how good it is to get pictures and stuff you get grown men close to tears at the sight of there kid or a good night out its really strange how this place fucks with your head and emotions. A BIG ONE that I NEED you to try do (get started ill help when I get back) is appeal to local charitys, churches, major companys ie Zoo, Cadburys, boots you name it. Write to them and explain my whereabouts and they do send gifts, chocolate, sweets, magazines you name it trust me a lot of the lads parents did it and they've got clothes, the lot. Trust me Red bull, lucazade, fags AND SWEETS are wicked just keep sending them and URGE people to send photos they keep the moral SKY HIGH. I thought Steely and Zacs [poses] in the garden were quality. I can only prove how much a letter or small parcel means by finding time to right back – that's probley the most precious thing I have and Id'e trade hours for a letter.
On some much sadder news one of our rifleman died a few days back, we had a parade and a few minutes silence its so strange how many emotions you go through living in these conditions its like everything wants to beat you and rewin your day. Its about not letting it get to you and don't worry nothing fucking gets to me. Well Im off I love you all loads thanks for my parcels and letters. Lots of love xxx
Hey Mum!
Its just gone 10 in the morning here Im on a stag rotation for the next 7 days guarding the FOB. Its 6 hours on 3 hours off so not much sleep. (Im already an hour in). If you could see what Im looking at now you'd be pretty shocked. Its pretty stunning to be honest. I could probley sling shot a stone from where we were last contacted [shot at] from Ha! Ha! Ha! Pretty fucking crazy huh? I shouldn't really tell you this but its safer than on the phone – were leaving this place. Its gonna be a fucking massive operation moving this lot + a lot of helicopter rides. So when I come back after R&R [leave] ill fly to [the main British camp] bastion then out to our new FOB. You don't really do much on stag. Swetting my tits of its gonna hit 50 degrees today. AAAAH Shit my grenade just fell out of my [body armour] – we wont mention that to any higherarcy will we now.
I think you said you were going to a weight loss thing a few days ago hope that well? (Just keep going) 37 days ill be home – not that Im counting or anything??? THINK there's a bird coming in today at 13.30 so this bluey will probley arrive with the others – well as always gotta go ill try ring when I get a top-up of minuets on Monday. FUCK knows what day it is I thought it was Sunday today. Ha! Ha! Well lots of love to you all!
Cyrus Thatcher was killed on 2 June 2009. This is the letter he wrote to be delivered to his family if he died:
Hello its me, this is gonna be hard for you to read but I write this knowing every time you thinks shits got to much for you to handle (so don't cry on it MUM!!) you can read this and hopefully it will help you all get through.
For a start SHIT I got hit!! Now Iv got that out the way I can say the things Iv hopefully made clear, or if I havent this should clear it all up for me. My hole life you'v all been there for me through thick and thin bit like a wedding through good and bad. Without you I believe I wouldn't have made it as far as I have. I died doing what I was born to do I was happy and felt great about myself although the army was sadly the ending of me it was also the making of me so please don't feel any hate toward it. One thing I no I never made clear to you all was I make jokes about my life starting in the Army. That's wrong VERY wrong my life began a LONG time before that (Obviously) but you get what I mean. All the times Iv tried to neglect the family get angry when you try teach me right from wrong wot I mean to say is I only realised that you were trying to help when I joined the army and without YOUR help I would have never had the BALLS, the GRIT and the damn right determination to crack on and do it. If I could have a wish in life it would to be able to say Iv gone and done things many would never try to do. And going to Afghan has fulfilled my dream ie my goal. Yes I am young wich as a parent must brake you heart but you must all somehow find the strength that I found to do something no matter how big the challenge. As Im writing this letter I can see you all crying and mornin my death but if I could have one wish in an "after life" it would be to stop your crying and continueing your dreams (as I did) because if I were watching only that would brake my heart. So dry your tears and put on a brave face for the rest of your friends and family who need you.
I want each and everyone of you to forfill a dream and at the end of it look at what you have done (completed) and feel the accomplishment and achievement I did only then will you understand how I felt when I passed away.
[To his brothers:] You are both amazing men and will continue to be throughout your lives you both deserve to be happy and fofill all of your dreams.
Dad – my idol, my friend, my best friend, my teacher, my coach, everything I ever succeeded in my life I owe to you and maybe a little bit of me! You are a great man and the perfect role model and the past two years of being in the army I noticed that and me and you have been on the best level we have ever been. I thank you for nothing because I no all you have given to me is not there to be thanked for its there because you did it cause you love me and that is my most proudest thing I could ever say.
Mum, where do I start with you!! For a start your perfect, your smell, your hugs, the way your life was dedicated to us boys and especially the way you cared each and every step us boys took. I love you, you were the reason I made it as far as I did you were the reason I was loved more than any child I no and that made me feel special.
Your all such great individuals and I hope somehow this letter will help you get through this shit time!! Just remember do NOT mourn my death as hard as this will seem, celebrate a great life that has had its ups and downs. I love you all more than you would ever no and in your own individual ways helped me get through it all. I wish you all the best with your dreams.
Remember chin up head down. With love Cyrus xxxx
What do you with a dragon? Hug it or slay it?
As the regulars here will know, I have decided that I must try and rectify my almost total ignorance of Chinese affairs. To this end I have been pestering a friend of mine based in Singapore for a news site that would offer regular and informed reportage but the only one he suggested was behind a pay-wall (probably owned by 'Rupe', I suspect!) and I refuse to pay for my news. But then I remembered - yes, yes, I know, I should have done it from the off - to try that cornucopia of information, Google. Almost immediately I came across a truly fascinating book review from last year by Mr. Gordon G. Chang on the subject of Henry Kissinger's last book titled On China. This critique published last Summer on the World Affairs site is worth reading in its entirety but I will pick out some salient points here.
Mr. Chang, hitherto unknown to me, begins by praising Kissinger for his very acute study of Chinese history from ancient times to the present day but then ends it with a sting in the tail:
When Kissinger writes about China's past, he displays a subtle understanding of the country. When he relays his conversations with the endlessly fascinating Mao Zedong, he dazzles us. When he considers the future, however, he flounders.
It takes a brave man to gainsay 'The World's Greatest Living Geo-Politician' but Mr. Chang does not hesitate. Whilst the book pretends to be about China, in fact, according to Mr. Chang, it is mostly about America's relations with contemporary China than which there is nothing more important facing the USA and, indeed, the rest of the world:
As Kissinger notes, "The relationship between China and the United States has become a central element in the quest for world peace and global well-being."
As part of this quest, Kissinger articulates a vision of "a Pacific Community," which he describes as "a region to which the United States, China, and other states all belong and in whose peaceful development all participate." The concept, based on the Atlantic Community formed after the Second World War, would both "reflect the reality that the United States is an Asian power" and respond "to China's aspiration to a global role."
Mr. Chang, whose elegant side-swipes are delivered with the deadly accuracy of a black belt Kung Fu practitioner:
Nonetheless, in his more sober moments [my emphasis], Kissinger implies there is not much possibility of ever reaching across the world's largest ocean to form this grand community.
At around this point warning bells started ringing in my head. Beyond Wiki, I know nothing of Mr. Chang and his background but back in the '40s and '50s there was a China lobby operating in the USA whose power was only exceeded by its malignancy. I don't know if it still exists in a 21st century form and nor do I know if Mr. Chang is part of it but if it is so then one needs to be aware that the hatred of these particular Chinese expatriates against the 'communist' rulers of China is deep and abiding. (Incidentally, you will have noticed the inverted commas around the word 'communist' because I do not believe that today that is a meaningful or accurate description of the current Chinese government.)
Back to Kissinger. In effect he advocates a live and let live policy:
A more likely development is what he calls "co-evolution," which means that "both countries pursue their domestic imperatives, cooperating where possible, and adjust their relations to minimize conflict." The most he says about this scaled-down goal is that the two sides should "attempt to elevate familiar crisis discussions into a more comprehensive framework that eliminates the underlying causes of the tensions."
He absolutely wishes to avoid a constant state of tension and competition between America and China. He uses the histoirical example of the mounting tensions between Wilhemine Germany and Great Britain at the beginning of the 20th century:
[H]e devotes pages to analyzing what happens when great nations compete without inhibitions. For this, he focuses on the late-nineteenth-century story of the rise of more than three dozen sovereign German states, which formed first the loosely organized German Confederation and then a powerful nation in the heart of Europe, thereby irrevocably changing a once-stable European system.
Kissinger shows that the English saw that conflict with Germany was inevitable, not so much because of Berlin's avowed intentions but because of its growing strength. The British Foreign Office, therefore, viewed formal German assurances as meaningless. As early as 1907, diplomacy became ineffective, and war almost inevitable. "The crisis of the system was inherent in its structure," he writes in what are the most thoughtful pages in the book.
In my view, that situation in which fear feeds belligerence which then nurtures yet more fear and then even greater belligerence has to be avoided in Sino-American relations. It will not be easy. There are elements within both countries, and I suspect Mr. Chang is one of them, who will insist on a hardline being taken. Certainly there appears to be a faction (how big it is I do not know) within the Chinese leadership (using that word in its widest sense) whose aggressive tendencies can be seen in the way in which China aids enemies of America and actually undertakes large scale electronic attacks on American networks. But also, there are forces within China who seem to understand what Wilhemine Germany never did, that they will gain more by peaceful economic means than by war.
It is a fascinating subject which will dominate the 21st century. Mr. Chang's review of Kissinger's book is well worth reading because within it are the main strands of two entirely different approaches towards China. However, in reading Mr. Chang's strictures concerning Kissinger's policy suggestions it is worth knowing that in 2001 he wrote a book forecasting the demise of China by 2006 because of the gross and undisclosed debts of the big four nationalised Chinese banks. To be fair, his timing might be out but his prophecy could still come about. By coincidence, I have just finished another article, on which I will be posting later, reporting a speech by the outgoing Chinese prime minister (bet you don't know his name - nor did I!) in which he proposed changes leading to increased privatisation of China's banking system.
I urge you, read the review and then beg, borrow, steal or even buy Kissinger's book.
"Seek and ye shall find!"
Well, two posts down I asked and, lo, Russ Roberts of Cafe Hayek answered! For those with short memories (and who wants a long memory for the sort of rubbish you find here?) the question I posed was "Why do they keep changing things- sod it?" And here is the answer:
Mind you, I have no idea what that little 'gizmo' is that he's holding in the second picture and as for actually making it work - well, my dears, simply too, too embarrassing!
I'm not saying I feel sorry for politicians but . . .
I didn't want to drone on yet again on the subject of security measures versus individual liberty, really I didn't, so I blame that Lord Carlile! Lord who? I hear you mutter! No, I hadn't heard of him either until I saw him on Sky News this morning. He is, I suggest, a perfect example of the exception that does not disprove the general rule. That rule, I sh0uld make clear, is the one that states that all Lib-Dems are brain-dead plankton! On the basis of a three or four minute interview - oh yes, it doesn't take an old hand like me long to judge the cut of a fella's jib (whatever a 'jib' is) - I would say that Lord Carlile, a Lib-Dem, himself, has more brain cells in his toes than Cameron and Clegg together have in their silly noodles.
No-one knows what the government have in mind (assuming that they actually possess one) in regard to secret intelligence being used in trials of suspected terrorists because they haven't bothered to tell us, thus allowing the media to run wild with this or that speculation. However, as Carlile pointed out, there is a real problem to be solved. Suppose you have a terrorist gang coming up in court accused of plotting an atrocity. There are two main reasons why you have been able to catch them. The first is that you have a source who is part of the community from which they are recruited. He has risked his life to provide you with the information. Also, he has the connections to possibly provide you with further information on another gang. Secondly, having broken their codes you have signals intercepts to a foreign power who is helping the gang in their planning. Other than that , you have nothing because as yet they have not broken the law or at least, you can't prove they have.
The question is simple but deadly. Do you blow your sources to prove their guilt or not? If you do not, they will go free and probably sue the government (in effect, you and me) for huge amounts of compensation. You cannot even disclose the sources of information to the defence team because they will not necessarily be trust-worthy.
So there's the problem - and the answer is . . . ?
In the meantime, I am starting a 'Carlile for Prime Minister' campaign!
WHY DO THEY KEEP CHANGING THINGS? - SOD IT!
I was in quite a good mood this morning until bloody, bloody TypePad changed the comments procedures. They say it is to stop spams from getting through but I am prepared to bet the deeds of the house that it will not! And they have changed the CAPTCHA letters to fall in-line with Google. All of you worried about 'Dim Dave' finding out who you are e-mailing and which sites you are looking at should relax - Google already knows! Needless to say, the CAPTCHA letters are even more incomprehensible than the old ones, but, they now offer you an audio aid to help you. Try it! It's totally useless, you can't hear a thing. Bloody, bloody, TypePad and bloody, bloody so-called progress. Grrrrrrr!
'Dear Lord, don't make me good, make me lucky!'
My title seems to be the default prayer today for more and more people, men and women, in all stratas of our society. You might care to add to my title, 'And, Lord, don't let me be found out!' I do realise that old men are prone to wailing that things aren't like they used to be and so I should make clear that I don't believe there has been some sort of golden age in which honesty and probity and straight-dealing was the order of the day. Even so, it seems to me that simple, old-fashioned notions of virtue seem to have almost disappeared. Ethics, in so far as it exists anywhere, seems to be confined by large organisations to ensuring that no-one indulges in racism!
In the last few years I have spectated the goings-on in the dismal non-science of climatology in which politically (I use the word in its widest sense) committed 'scientists' have bent truth to suit their agenda. When they were found out, various committees of 'the Great and the Good' were wheeled in to whitewash their behaviour. Just yesterday, I pointed out the disgraceful fact that 47 out of 53 supposedly 'scientific' papers on possible cancer cures were found to be impossible to replicate. In our civil service, our local authorities, our schools, our universities, our police, our media industry and, above all, our parliament and government, we find a constant practice, almost amounting to a deliberate policy, of lying and cheating. I would remind you that, despite appearances, these dishonest activites are not conducted by 'organisations', they are executed by individuals, people - people like me and you!
Whilst I cannot claim with any certainty that such corrupting and corruptible behaviour never occurred in earlier generations, I think I can claim that at least there was a sense of shame involved. The perpetrators knew they were doing wrong. Today, I rarely sense that in the behaviour of the lying liars who hold positions of influence in our society. Whether it's a teacher giving her pupils hints on the exam questions to come, or a public employee 'throwing sickies' as often as he or she can get away with, or a managers of large corporations being 'economical with the actualité', or a 'scientist glossing his experimental results, everywhere and all the time people are lying through their teeth.
So why, I wonder, has the notion of ethical behaviour, of honesty, almost totally disappeared? No doubt part of it is the loss of Christian teaching to the very young. Whatever one might think of Christianity as a corporate body, so to speak, no-one can gainsay its fundamental teachings on personal virtue. However, the loss of the ten commandments has been matched by the growth in political ideology in which ends justify means. Examples of this are too numerous to list and they exist on both sides of the political divide. Well, as individuals, of course, our power is limited but we do have dominion over ourselves. So perhaps we should remind ourselves of Shakespeare's words:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves
Or, perhaps the words of many of my old school teachers, "Could do better!"