Thursday 2 June 2011

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Review of Civilization: The West and the Rest, by Niall Ferguson

https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2011/06/review-of-civilization-the-west-and-the-rest-by-niall-ferguson/

The new blog format has virtually killed off discussion around news issues on BBC sites - so isn't it time the BBC admitted they've got this seriously wrong and scrapped the dumbdowned format and returned this this EXCELLENT previous format?

THE PALACE OF WESTMINSTER - WHO GOES THERE?

I have coined: “Politics is the art of self-deception, wrapped in the craft of deceiving others for their own good.” Who would be content – even rewarded – when functioning to this model?

Westminster is constructively adversarial, factional (twice over) hierarchical, theatrical, dysfunctional and unaccountable; staffed by the unskilled and incompetent, who fervently hope to be promoted beyond their ability. Just who would seek – even strive – to go there?

Westminster is a Royal Palace, situated adjacent to the iconic Thames, in the heart of London, yet functioning largely outside the law of the land. Parliament operates under the aegis of an emasculated monarch and entangled with the ‘established’ Anglican Church. Who would connive at – or wish to be part of - such an archaic charade?

It is reported that less than half a million voters, determine the winning party in UK general elections. The Electoral Commission (i.e.Westminster) permits up to £19.5 million expenditure, per party (Conservatives top spender @ £16.7M). Who would wish to be either returned unexamined (safe seat) or returned via votes of ‘bought minds’?

For a few weeks, after a general election is called, MPs and wannabes parade the streets and assail the homes of the electorate, wearing party rosettes and a disingenuous grin, as they present; “Vote for me” against a background of massed balloons, placards and acolytes. However, it is not in dispute that the major share of votes, go to the rosette. (Appropriately so, when the cipher MP is so often a non-entity). Further, if the party chooses to bump out their incumbent, and parachute-in a favoured one (locally unknown) the votes blindly ‘follow the rosette’. Who would deliver themselves up to this ignominy?

Elected MPs, ’set themselves up’ as if holding elevated status, when – at best – they are ‘employed’ by the constituency to do a job, on its behalf. This is hardly surprising when we consider their, totally unjustified, attachment of ‘Honourable’ and their code of conduct that allows them to choose where their allegiance lies: party or voter. It is said: “No man can serve two masters’; the voters have no whip. or right of recall’, they fall back to ignominious impotence once the election is over. Who would be attracted to such a dishonourable state of affairs?

When a mundane con

back to as it was beeb....please...u no it makes sense....

AS I WAS SAYING (#40

When a mundane constituency MP attains high party office, the soon-to-be-tertiary constituents, are not consulted regarding this further dispossession. In fact, those achieving office, gain access to the ’Globopoly Table’, where games as meaningless as the internet’s ‘Second Life’ are played out, self-indulgently, while the World goes progressively to pot. The same man who accosted a voter in the high-street, is now a global superstar – his constituency not a small patch but a giant sphere. Should your MP then become PM, Tony Blair say; when he is deposed, you will be dumped mid-term, demonstrating just how much that hand shake ever meant. Who would want to join such an unprincipled band?

Westminster is a block to democracy, decency and civilised advancement.

SPOILPARTYGAMES - DISMANTLE WESTMINSTER

#3
'The new blog format has virtually killed off discussion around news issues on BBC sites'

Dont you see!....that was most probably the desired outcome. In the main, the blogs that have been transferred to the new format are the ones that probably have (or had) the highest 'hit rates'. Have you also noticed that you cannot now click on a users name that previously would allow you to read a particular poster's previous posts?

It was probably implemented in order to stop individuals, via the BBC, proposing alternative ideologies (some would say subversive?) to the all pervasive libertarian/pro free-market, anarchistic doctrine that now currently exists chiefly in the US/UK and the West.

It's a doctrine that is anarchistic (i.e. deregulating) and anti statist (elimination of the state in favour of private enterprise).

btw - I mentioned a while ago Cameron's worthless 'I will be tough on immigration' rhetoric last year whilst campaigning in light of today's development....

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8550197/Immigration-asylum-backlog-led-to-amnesty-MPs-warn.html

However, we should only judge politicians (and policies) by their OUTCOMES. 'Intensional opacity' I believe somebody on here in the past described it as.

Remember, all three parties in Westminster are libertarian since Old Labour was forced to drop it's Clause IV.

As mentioned many times now, just think of all those newly naturalised citizens as extra consumers ripe for milking by private enterprise.

UN: US Dollar May Collapse Amid Lack of Confidence
https://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/UN-US-Dollar-Collapse/2011/05/31/id/398247

building worship is just another form of idolatry that should not be funded by the taxpayer.

RELAX MORT. THE MIGHTY O HAS THE US DOLLAR UNDER HIS CONTROL (#9)

After all - everything else is.

OBEY

Can Obama waggle his ears?
I think we should be told.
Did they stick them back or Photoshop
With Audacity of Bold?
Or did he instruct them to lie down flat
For the photo that’s on his book-cover?
As he’s the ‘world’s most powerful man’
The ears should obey the Obama!

HUMBLE GLASSHOPPER HAVE QUESTION FOR ‘GURU V’ (#8)

"However, we should only judge politicians (and policies) by their OUTCOMES. 'Intensional opacity' I believe somebody on here in the past described it as."

QUESTION: If one's 4-year-old (let's call him Dave) has a policy of dangling out of the sixth floor widow by his teeth, do we judge him errant or wait for outcome?

I still can't understand the explanation of 'intensional'. And Guru JJ never explicated anything!

GM NEWS: PERVERSITY HAS BEEN CROSSED WITH HYPOCRISY

https://www.anh-europe.org/news/european-commission-sets-new-standards-%E2%80%93-in-hypocrisy?utm_source=The+Alliance+for+Natural+Health&utm_campaign=95058cff75-110602_ANH_Intl_eAlert_No_576_2_2011&utm_medium=email

how the bbc helped spread the hayekist propaganda during the thatcher years

and recognise the exact same arguments being used to fool the public again today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izjs0UV12fo

INDEED JAUNTY - WESTMINSTER ENDURES (#14)

Monarchy and Church 'legitimise' Westminster which in turn 'legitimises' the parties who 'legitimise' political practices (lies, deceit, humbug - in the name of 'honour') and we can't touch them because Westminster is a citadel built to defend self-interest AGAINST us.
Nuff sed

15 they replaced one fallacy with another. that the market is the best arranger of the nation's affairs. that any outcome of the market [that they called all knowing and most wise] is the public good. which led to the crunch and energy profiteering.

markets deliver profit and monopolies. nothing else.

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https://rogerhelmermep.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/global-warming-or-global-cooling/

..“Would it be too bold, in the economic field, with a single market, a single currency and a single central bank, to envisage a ministry of finance of the union?” Trichet said in a speech today in Aachen, ....

which is symbolic because...

..Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. ..

its also linked to the battle of the bulge- a surprise strike .

AS GOLD PROTECTS AGAINST MONETARY COLLAPSE UNLIMITED ENERGY AGAINST CLIMATIC EXTREMES #18)

How dumb, then, to rely on solar when cloud is unpredictable or wind/wave - also solar driven, and hydro (rain) - insolation again. Nuclear comes at a price - in the limit, worth paying, but surely tide (moon driven - even through cloud!) and geothermal are the places to start?

Of course, when CO2 is no longer a Bogey Man we are well placed - for a while.

Energy allows survival of heat, cold and drought (de-salination). Whether we are worth saving is entirely another matter . . .

#12

Intensional opacity is akin to what you stated in your #4…. 'the art of self-deception, wrapped in the craft of deceiving others for their own good'

As an example, listen to what Cameron says in this piece on immigration on the 14th April
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8450700/David-Cameron-pledges-immigration-crackdown.html

He stated 'During the election campaign the Conservatives made a clear commitment to the British people...that we would AIM to bring net migration down to the levels we saw in the 1980's and the 1990's.'

What's an aim?…how can it ever be proven if it's merely an intention?…if it can't be measured then it's opaque. How can that statement ever be construed as a clear commitment….it's immeasurable.

He actually went on to say 'Our country has benefited immeasurably from immigration.' If it's immeasurable then how do we know we have benefited. It's ludicrous.

Now how do you square the above with the following, recent reports about immigration over the past year.

2-Jun-11
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8550197/Immigration-asylum-backlog-led-to-amnesty-MPs-warn.html

27-May-11
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8550197/Immigration-asylum-backlog-led-to-amnesty-MPs-warn.html

26-May-11
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8538318/Net-immigration-hits-six-year-high-in-blow-to-Coalition.html

The outcome rather suggests that it wasn't his intention at all. There's another word that describes all of this….it's called lying.

Remember, more people means more consumers. More consumers means more profits for the evil few.

PARTICIPATIVE MEGALOMANIA - IS IT AS REAL AS ANY OTHER MENTAL ABERRATION?

I watch our politicians handing power to the EU, in complete wonderment, as I, personally, am inclined to anarchy. I keep asking: "Why do they want to be a smaller fish in a larger pool?" Is it yet another quirk of the wretched Ape Confused by Language? Are they actually more turned on just by the knowledge of 'LARGE POOL'?

I have called, before, for politicians to be put into scanners - this clinches it.

There is a tenet of Transactional Analysis called 'stroking' - positive is pleasurable but negative (i.e. being abused) IS BETTER THAN NOTHING. (Graphically illustrated in the recent Panorama investigation.) Might it be that the typical Westminster politician gets more out of giving their puny power away to a dominant group than in hanging on to it? Might it be called 'Whipped Cur' syndrome? I see a picture forming . . .

Hardly good governance though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFapJta2oJI&feature=feedu

How does BBCs Mark Mardell - the Obama cheerleader - sleep at night?

CONDUCIVE RESPONSE (#21)

Thanks V. I am half way there.

Depression 2.0

Fiat's Fire
https://fiatsfire.blogspot.com/2011/06/downgrade-thursday-moodys-downgrades.html

MALE MISSIONARY ZEAL

When a man (or woe-man) in a position of power, is possessed of missionary zeal, whether they have the name Mladic, or one of a string of names more familiar to us all, then slaughter will follow, IN THE NAME OF THE GREATER GOOD.

Yet again, we have an embodiment of missionary zeal, who has a CERTAINTY OF RIGHT AND WRONG that a suicide bomber might envy, leading the charge for 'freedom' in Johnnie Foreigner land. Many will die, 'that many might live'. Continuation of this juvenile delusion will endure while we, the voters, persist at every election in

GETTING OURSELVES ANOTHER ONE.

Too Stupid Too Stop?

https://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-too-big-fail-or-too-stupid-stop-screw-banksnot-people

'Rather than considering how governments have systematically done, and continue to do, the wrong thing (as in immoral, unfair, and uneconomically sound) by trying to preserve banks, any politicians possessing the ability to think independently (an oxymoron, I know) should be asking themselves instead, how clever they could be about closing them down. Take a cue from Iceland.'

'3. At 13:30 2nd Jun 2011, richard bunning
The new blog format has virtually killed off discussion around news issues on BBC sites'

As already ably pointed out, it's possible discussion isn't really 'their thing'.

Certainly, despite a rash claim to be keen to engage, the chief cheerleader for the new format seems to have locked himself in a filing cabinet in a basement room with a door labelled 'Beware of the Leopard'. About 2 weeks and counting thus far. Must be the new media response times we hear so much about (if, from some media owners, a bit later, if at all).

https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2011/05/our_next_step_in_news_blogging.html

'keeps the best and the brightest out'

Not to mention the worst but richest? I refer, of course, to overseas students, market rate talent-wise.

IS ICELAND’S SALVATION THAT 'SMALL IS MANAGEABLE'? (#28)

If so, the trends to EU 'engrossment' and USA New World Orderism, are seen to be the product of extreme, unaware minds.

That figures.

Offshoring has destroyed the economy
https://www.vdare.com/roberts/110530_globalism.htm

'When a country’s tradeable goods and services are converted by offshoring them into its imports, it is thrown back on low productivity domestic service jobs for its employment. These domestic service jobs, except for dentists, lawyers, teachers, and medical doctors, do not require a university education. Yet, the UK has hundreds of universities and colleges, and the government endlessly repeating the mantra "education, education, education".'

McJobs anayone?

The impending dumbing down of this blog to the new ludicrous format prompts me to ask if people might like to gently circumvent it?

https://devondickie.blogspot.com/2011/06/bbc-dumbdownblogs.html

Using the exterior blogs like google and posting a link like this means we carry on as before, but with only one additional click!

What do people think?

1.


goodness the pro immigration lobby come across as blinkered? the system looks designed for fraud? no checks? merely tick boxing?

reminds one of government regulators?

2.The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

ah yes the bbc used to do that. long ago. could NN be outsourced to the BIJ? why hasn't the bbc created such a team? isn't it public service?

https://thebureauinvestigates.com/

they have much more interesting stories than the usual NN 'how do people feel' sofa diet?


3. nothing as boring as middle class building worship. funny how people need to big up ugly buildings. the public know when something looks good they don't need a self appointed priesthood to tell them.

the priesthood hated the cladding on tower bridge and wanted only the structure to show.

OMG middle aged women in mini skirts. no no no.

@33 wrote:
"OMG middle aged women in mini skirts. no no no"

yes yes yes!...if they are in good shape and can carry it off, why not eh.

'32. At 11:56 3rd Jun 2011, richard bunning - people might like to gently circumvent it?'

A nice notion, but a century of brand building and £4Bpa is a heck of a focus for the 'product' of news, even when extended to related debate, which would tend to lurk around the same place.

One suspects people will tend to gravitate, especially around a black hole.

But no reason not to try.

Pleased to see that Newsnight finally got round to doing a piece on the disastrously counter-productive clamp down on students coming to Britain .....

https://dblackie.blogs.com/the_language_business/2011/06/the-quangocracy-is-in-the-way.html

COMING TO THIS BLOG IS LIKE GOING TO CHURCH - AN EMPTY HABIT (#32)

I was mulling the same thing Richard. My recent 'test' piece (WHO GOES THERE) got cut off at around 2000 characters, but it can only get worse. I register no reduction in 'enhancement' practices in the BBC, so that's where the money goes.

See you on the other side.

34

kirsty dressing like a 14 year old is bad enough... :)

More on the student story .... Border guards rule OK ....

https://dblackie.blogs.com/the_language_business/2011/04/border-guards-rule-ok.html