I was inspired a while ago to indulge in cooking, rather than treat it as a chore. Much to my surprise, I've become more and more hooked on it. Those who follow me on twitter will know about ObosKitchen.
Yesterday I cooked something that rocked my world so much, I thought I'd share it on my blog and who knows, it may become a occasional feature. Since it's aimed a blokes or the kitchen-impaired (like me) the kind of food I'll do will be quite simple and much more aimed at taste than looks.
Because I was hungry, I used the following:
1 courgette, sliced into 2", pinkie-thick "chips"
2 small tubs of cubed pancetta (available in the "cold meats" section of most supermarkets - Tesco and Sainsbury's do two small tubs in a blister pack)
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped or pressed
A dozen "mozzarella pearls", which Sainsbury sell in their super-cheap "Value" range
A pinch of coarse ground black pepper
You don't need oil or butter because the pancetta produces prodigious amounts of fat.
Warm a pan to a low heat (I turn the gas down as low as I can) and pour in the pancetta. It should start to sizzle and release the fat. As soon as there is "enough" oil in the pan, add the garlic.
Stir occasionally until the pancetta just starts to show odd bits of browning.
It's very important NOT to let the pancetta cook too far before you start adding other ingredients, or it will become very crunchy.
Add in the courgettes and move everything around so that the white inside of the courgette chips is in contact with the pan. It's a bit fiddly, but worth it.
Make sure that the white surfaces of the courgette all get a bit of golden brown on them.
When the courgettes look mostly golden, drain the mozzarella pearls of their water and then add them to the pan. Crank the heat right up and stir for about a minute. as soon as the mozzarella starts to show signs of melting, take the pan off the heat (and turn the stove off!) and throw the whole shebang into a colander to drain off the fat.
Pour it straight out of the colander onto a plate, sprinkle with a pinch of pepper and tuck in. Not very pretty, but it tasted fucking epic!
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
Is that really even a word?
Batmanghelidjh?
Apparently it is, and apparently Camila is one of the "good people", who actually does a lot of good things for "street kids". And I don't for a moment doubt that she does.
But the article left me feeling irritated for some reason.
Ah. The casual dismissive attitude towards people who dare to regard a bunch of opportunist criminals as opportunist criminals. Christ knows I am no fan of the police, but what is this shit about "police relations". The police are there to give you a crime number when you get burgled, nothing more and that is to a large fucking part because they spend so much time on fucking "community relations" that they can't be arsed to police any more.
Casual smugness about those living in ivory towers or not being otherwise "down wiv da yoofs, innit?" is just as unwelcome. I'm not remotely surprised by these events, and I'm not even in the street kids business.
Twitter and Facebook were also used by the police to warn and advise, or by people telling their friends and loved ones that they were safe. I only saw Twitter and Facebook used "for good", I guess I don't follow enough opportunist criminals to see the momentum you did. So fuck you and your fatuous example.
Apart from the dole money that they use to keep themselves in dope and booze, and the fucking council house they live in. But God forbid we dare to raise the idea that these fucking twats don't deserve the largesse of the people they looted from who already pay their cost of living!
Perhaps if they weren't so fucking entitled to a place to stay and a fucking handout, they wouldn't be so fucking dismissive of "the establishment". But Camila, I'm afraid "the establishment" does not have any money of its own. "The establishment" extorts money from taxpayers and the very people who had their businesses pillaged and destroyed were helping to pay the upkeep of the scum who robbed them.
Perhaps community outreach workers and the like could actually point this out a little more to the scum who think the world owes them a living.
This utterly fucks me off.
When I grew up, I had no fucking youth cunting centre in the entire fucking town. I cannot fucking stand this shitting bollocks that we need more cunting fucking cock-sucking youth centres. It's a fucking bullshit excuse because you don't need a fucking youth centre to read a book or play a game or ride a bicycle or fucking go to a movie.
If Camila is that fucking worried about street kids, why the cunt is she promoting this lazy shit that we need youth centres at all.
What we need is a society where kids are not entitled to be entirely disrespectful of the very people who are raising them or contributing to their very survival. The endless excusing of the behaviour of these twats and constant calling for someone from the council or the government to do something to give them facilities is the very cause of the problem.
Precisely because the estates are free. If you don't pay for something, it has no fucking value to you. The state doesn't give a flying fuck, it's not the state's actual money, and the people who live there don't give a flying fuck because they don't pay for it.
Why should British children have papers? What fucking bullshit point are you trying to make here?
Mothers surviving through prostitution is awful if they don't want to be prostitutes, but why is there not enough food on the table? Is it not perhaps because the mother is choosing to spend the money on something else? What is this shit? Assuming the mother gets a tenner a trick and does one a day, that's enough to feed a family of four, if you're not living off fucking Dominos or KFC. What is this shit?
What the actual FUCK is this shit? If they're young and intelligent, they can get off their fucking arses and get a job or start their own business. What fucking "help" does a young and intelligent person need? How about a fucking kick up the arse?
Oh pass me my violin, Camila. Seriously. If Britain was a country where success wasn't vilified and denigrated, where the people who work the hardest and pay the most tax weren't insulted with demands to have more of their money stolen to feed and clothe and house the feckless and the lazy and the entitled, that would help more.
I've been on the fucking bones of my arse more than once, not knowing how I was going to feed and clothe my family and the thought of looting a 52" LCD TV never entered my mind. I have "failed" completely more than once and lost everything. I'm still here, I'm still raising my child and I'm not fucking setting fire to the livelihood of people more fortunate than myself.
Or in English: "give me some money to salve your conscience".
But no, fuck that I say.
It doesn't cost money to care. Throwing money at problems like this, rather than individually taking responsibility for raising our own children and keeping them on the rails makes this whole fucking thing worse, a lot worse. Caring costs effort.
And that is one thing that we seem desperately unwilling to give.
Apparently it is, and apparently Camila is one of the "good people", who actually does a lot of good things for "street kids". And I don't for a moment doubt that she does.
But the article left me feeling irritated for some reason.
London has woken up to street violence, and the usual narratives have emerged – punish those responsible for the violence because they are "opportunist criminals" and "disgusting thieves". The slightly more intellectually curious might blame the trouble on poor police relations or lack of policing.
Ah. The casual dismissive attitude towards people who dare to regard a bunch of opportunist criminals as opportunist criminals. Christ knows I am no fan of the police, but what is this shit about "police relations". The police are there to give you a crime number when you get burgled, nothing more and that is to a large fucking part because they spend so much time on fucking "community relations" that they can't be arsed to police any more.
Second, for those of us working at street level, we're not surprised by these events.
Casual smugness about those living in ivory towers or not being otherwise "down wiv da yoofs, innit?" is just as unwelcome. I'm not remotely surprised by these events, and I'm not even in the street kids business.
Twitter and Facebook have kept the perverse momentum going, transmitting invitations such as: "Bare shops are gonna get smashed up. So come, get some (free stuff!!!!) F... the feds we will send them back with OUR riot! Dead the ends and colour war for now. So If you see a brother... SALUTE! If you see a fed... SHOOT!"
Twitter and Facebook were also used by the police to warn and advise, or by people telling their friends and loved ones that they were safe. I only saw Twitter and Facebook used "for good", I guess I don't follow enough opportunist criminals to see the momentum you did. So fuck you and your fatuous example.
Working at street level in London, over a number of years, many of us have been concerned about large groups of young adults creating their own parallel antisocial communities with different rules. The individual is responsible for their own survival because the established community is perceived to provide nothing.
Apart from the dole money that they use to keep themselves in dope and booze, and the fucking council house they live in. But God forbid we dare to raise the idea that these fucking twats don't deserve the largesse of the people they looted from who already pay their cost of living!
Perhaps if they weren't so fucking entitled to a place to stay and a fucking handout, they wouldn't be so fucking dismissive of "the establishment". But Camila, I'm afraid "the establishment" does not have any money of its own. "The establishment" extorts money from taxpayers and the very people who had their businesses pillaged and destroyed were helping to pay the upkeep of the scum who robbed them.
Perhaps community outreach workers and the like could actually point this out a little more to the scum who think the world owes them a living.
The insidious flourishing of anti-establishment attitudes is paradoxically helped by the establishment. It grows when a child is dragged by their mother to social services screaming for help and security guards remove both; or in the shiny academies which, quietly, rid themselves of the most disturbed kids. Walk into the mental hospitals and there is nothing for the patients to do except peel the wallpaper. Go to the youth centre and you will find the staff have locked themselves up in the office because disturbed young men are dominating the space with their violent dogs.
This utterly fucks me off.
When I grew up, I had no fucking youth cunting centre in the entire fucking town. I cannot fucking stand this shitting bollocks that we need more cunting fucking cock-sucking youth centres. It's a fucking bullshit excuse because you don't need a fucking youth centre to read a book or play a game or ride a bicycle or fucking go to a movie.
If Camila is that fucking worried about street kids, why the cunt is she promoting this lazy shit that we need youth centres at all.
What we need is a society where kids are not entitled to be entirely disrespectful of the very people who are raising them or contributing to their very survival. The endless excusing of the behaviour of these twats and constant calling for someone from the council or the government to do something to give them facilities is the very cause of the problem.
Walk on the estate stairwells with your baby in a buggy manoeuvring past the condoms, the needles, into the lift where the best outcome is that you will survive the urine stench and the worst is that you will be raped. The border police arrive at the neighbour's door to grab an "over-stayer" and his kids are screaming. British children with no legal papers have mothers surviving through prostitution and still there's not enough food on the table.
Precisely because the estates are free. If you don't pay for something, it has no fucking value to you. The state doesn't give a flying fuck, it's not the state's actual money, and the people who live there don't give a flying fuck because they don't pay for it.
Why should British children have papers? What fucking bullshit point are you trying to make here?
Mothers surviving through prostitution is awful if they don't want to be prostitutes, but why is there not enough food on the table? Is it not perhaps because the mother is choosing to spend the money on something else? What is this shit? Assuming the mother gets a tenner a trick and does one a day, that's enough to feed a family of four, if you're not living off fucking Dominos or KFC. What is this shit?
It's not one occasional attack on dignity, it's a repeated humiliation, being continuously dispossessed in a society rich with possession. Young, intelligent citizens of the ghetto seek an explanation for why they are at the receiving end of bleak Britain, condemned to a darkness where their humanity is not even valued enough to be helped.
What the actual FUCK is this shit? If they're young and intelligent, they can get off their fucking arses and get a job or start their own business. What fucking "help" does a young and intelligent person need? How about a fucking kick up the arse?
Savagery is a possibility within us all. Some of us have been lucky enough not to have to call upon it for survival; others, exhausted from failure, can justify resorting to it.
Oh pass me my violin, Camila. Seriously. If Britain was a country where success wasn't vilified and denigrated, where the people who work the hardest and pay the most tax weren't insulted with demands to have more of their money stolen to feed and clothe and house the feckless and the lazy and the entitled, that would help more.
I've been on the fucking bones of my arse more than once, not knowing how I was going to feed and clothe my family and the thought of looting a 52" LCD TV never entered my mind. I have "failed" completely more than once and lost everything. I'm still here, I'm still raising my child and I'm not fucking setting fire to the livelihood of people more fortunate than myself.
It costs money to care. But it also costs money to clear up riots, savagery and antisocial behaviour. I leave it to you to do the financial and moral sums.
Or in English: "give me some money to salve your conscience".
But no, fuck that I say.
It doesn't cost money to care. Throwing money at problems like this, rather than individually taking responsibility for raising our own children and keeping them on the rails makes this whole fucking thing worse, a lot worse. Caring costs effort.
And that is one thing that we seem desperately unwilling to give.
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Sorry mate, we're full
Things really have come to a pretty pass when banks don't want to take your money:
A couple of things leap out of that story to me, first and foremost that the EU's banks are so fucked that the US banks look like a good bet.
Just think about that for a moment. The US economy is fucked, with fucked topping and still the money is pouring in from Europe, because Europe is even worse!
Secondly, my inevitable observation that regulation is proving to be an expensive bolting of the stable door, long after the horse has fucked off. Banks, who rode the wave of economic bubblery created by lunatic governments are now being taxed (because the deposit insurance is no such fucking thing, of course, it's just another Ponzi scheme) and taking in masses of money is so expensive and (government-mandated) interest rates are so low that they actually cannot afford deposits of large amounts of money.
Thirdly, this shows exactly why the EU's much-hyped "Tobin Tax" is doomed to failure, and worse yet, will actually probably fuck the entire financial industry beyond repair. It's true that masses of money are shifted around the markets in search of short-term gains, but often those gains are not significant amounts of money. If shifting a billion pounds from one account to another for a couple of days will cost you a fiver for your time and nett you a couple of grand, you'd probably do it (or have a clerk do it). But if you have to pay a grand to get two, is it still worth the effort?
I can see these escalating costs of "insurance", etc., totally destroying the movement of capital in search of gains, which means that the people who want that capital enough to get the gains, are not going to get them.
This will not end well.
U.S. regulators have asked some banks to take more deposits from large investors even if it’s unprofitable, and lenders in return are seeking relief on insurance premiums and leverage ratios, according to six people with knowledge of the talks.
Deposits are flooding into the biggest U.S. banks as customers seek shelter from Europe’s debt crisis and falling stock prices. That forces lenders to raise capital for a growing balance sheet and saddles them with the higher deposit insurance payments. With short-term interest rates so low, it’s hard for financial firms to reinvest the new money profitably.
Regulators have asked banks to take the deposits anyway, three people said, with one lender accepting $100 billion. The regulators want lenders to take the deposits because it improves the stability of the financial system, according to one of the people, who said U.S. banks are viewed as places of strength.
Some of the largest ones have talked with regulators about softening rules for ratios that measure capital and assets, according to the people, who declined to be identified because talks are private. At least one asked for a waiver on paying higher premiums to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which is less likely to be granted, one of the people said.
A couple of things leap out of that story to me, first and foremost that the EU's banks are so fucked that the US banks look like a good bet.
Just think about that for a moment. The US economy is fucked, with fucked topping and still the money is pouring in from Europe, because Europe is even worse!
Secondly, my inevitable observation that regulation is proving to be an expensive bolting of the stable door, long after the horse has fucked off. Banks, who rode the wave of economic bubblery created by lunatic governments are now being taxed (because the deposit insurance is no such fucking thing, of course, it's just another Ponzi scheme) and taking in masses of money is so expensive and (government-mandated) interest rates are so low that they actually cannot afford deposits of large amounts of money.
Thirdly, this shows exactly why the EU's much-hyped "Tobin Tax" is doomed to failure, and worse yet, will actually probably fuck the entire financial industry beyond repair. It's true that masses of money are shifted around the markets in search of short-term gains, but often those gains are not significant amounts of money. If shifting a billion pounds from one account to another for a couple of days will cost you a fiver for your time and nett you a couple of grand, you'd probably do it (or have a clerk do it). But if you have to pay a grand to get two, is it still worth the effort?
I can see these escalating costs of "insurance", etc., totally destroying the movement of capital in search of gains, which means that the people who want that capital enough to get the gains, are not going to get them.
This will not end well.
Friday, 26 August 2011
Currying Favour
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Monday, 15 August 2011
The Fallacy of State Prevention of Crime
One of the most irritating objections to anarchy that I have to face on a daily basis is that the state prevents crime. Hopefully, it is now abundantly clear to the thickest of statists that it does no such thing.
The thing that prevents most of us from committing crimes is that we don't want to. Most of us do just want to get along and live a peaceful life. Those that don't are almost certainly already criminals, who may or may not yet have been caught.
The fear of detection is not really a factor in preventing crime. It just means more planning to the committed criminal and is not a concern of anyone committing a spur-of-the-moment crime. But even if this fear is a factor, why does that imply that we need a state?
Detecting can, and often is, done by private investigators. Bobbies on the beat (remember them?) could easily be replaced by privately contracted people.
The business of slapping people on the wrist and dishing out entirely inappropriate punishments could also be done by a call centre in India, with as much effect on criminals.
But seriously, although it's the area where most people really struggle with not having a state, the truth of the matter is that most people implicitly accept the idea of having multiple impartial arbiters for various requirements. You don't go to a Magistrate's Court to settle a football match.
You don't go to the Supreme Court to arbitrate a small claim on a shop. You don't go to to the FA to get a decree absolute. Equally, when you sign certain contracts, you agree the jurisdiction that will be applied.
So when you download stuff from Apple's iTunes Store, you're agreeing to a whole bunch of conditions under the laws of the United States, even though you may not be there and may never have been there.
And even within the UK legal system, there are specialist courts for specialist legal areas. So the idea of a market for courts is by no means unfeasible. A market for courts already exists.
The big struggle that people have is that they feel like having them privately funded will expose them to greater risk of corruption. I disagree, because in a society with no state to hide behind, judges would be completely personally liable for the consequences of any corruption or malfeasance.
So I would expect judges to be much more careful in their dealings because the consequences of any shady dealings would not only mean that they could wind up in gaol if caught, but they would also be financially responsible for any losses incurred by affected parties.
But really, in societies before government, there are always a shaman or a chief or elders or some group that people subjected themselves to.
In an anarchic society, you might have a visible disclaimer in your shop saying "Any crimes committed in this shop will be under the jurisdiction of Fred's Supa-cheep Court", or on the company website you might find the disclaimer "Any crime committed against this company will be under the jurisdiction of Chris's Corporate Court".
This would make it clear which court you would be tried at. Or, in much the same way as juries are haggled over by defence and prosecution attorneys in the States, perhaps the initial haggling would include which court was going to decide the case.
In either event, it's not beyond the wit of man to imagine such a system.
Similarly, it's not beyond the wit of man to realise that the state has done nothing to prevent this current outbreak of crime and is more responsible for its happening than anyone else.
The state does not prevent crime. The state is not needed to detect or punish crime. The state does not make us all just get along.
Fuck the state.
Post script: if you think the police are a better, safer option than private security with unlimited liability, watch this:
Tip of the clown wig to @Matt_Muir on twitter.
The thing that prevents most of us from committing crimes is that we don't want to. Most of us do just want to get along and live a peaceful life. Those that don't are almost certainly already criminals, who may or may not yet have been caught.
The fear of detection is not really a factor in preventing crime. It just means more planning to the committed criminal and is not a concern of anyone committing a spur-of-the-moment crime. But even if this fear is a factor, why does that imply that we need a state?
Detecting can, and often is, done by private investigators. Bobbies on the beat (remember them?) could easily be replaced by privately contracted people.
The business of slapping people on the wrist and dishing out entirely inappropriate punishments could also be done by a call centre in India, with as much effect on criminals.
But seriously, although it's the area where most people really struggle with not having a state, the truth of the matter is that most people implicitly accept the idea of having multiple impartial arbiters for various requirements. You don't go to a Magistrate's Court to settle a football match.
You don't go to the Supreme Court to arbitrate a small claim on a shop. You don't go to to the FA to get a decree absolute. Equally, when you sign certain contracts, you agree the jurisdiction that will be applied.
So when you download stuff from Apple's iTunes Store, you're agreeing to a whole bunch of conditions under the laws of the United States, even though you may not be there and may never have been there.
And even within the UK legal system, there are specialist courts for specialist legal areas. So the idea of a market for courts is by no means unfeasible. A market for courts already exists.
The big struggle that people have is that they feel like having them privately funded will expose them to greater risk of corruption. I disagree, because in a society with no state to hide behind, judges would be completely personally liable for the consequences of any corruption or malfeasance.
So I would expect judges to be much more careful in their dealings because the consequences of any shady dealings would not only mean that they could wind up in gaol if caught, but they would also be financially responsible for any losses incurred by affected parties.
But really, in societies before government, there are always a shaman or a chief or elders or some group that people subjected themselves to.
In an anarchic society, you might have a visible disclaimer in your shop saying "Any crimes committed in this shop will be under the jurisdiction of Fred's Supa-cheep Court", or on the company website you might find the disclaimer "Any crime committed against this company will be under the jurisdiction of Chris's Corporate Court".
This would make it clear which court you would be tried at. Or, in much the same way as juries are haggled over by defence and prosecution attorneys in the States, perhaps the initial haggling would include which court was going to decide the case.
In either event, it's not beyond the wit of man to imagine such a system.
Similarly, it's not beyond the wit of man to realise that the state has done nothing to prevent this current outbreak of crime and is more responsible for its happening than anyone else.
The state does not prevent crime. The state is not needed to detect or punish crime. The state does not make us all just get along.
Fuck the state.
Post script: if you think the police are a better, safer option than private security with unlimited liability, watch this:
Tip of the clown wig to @Matt_Muir on twitter.
Sunday, 14 August 2011
Saturday, 13 August 2011
Smell the smugness...
The nation that gave the world Tiananmen Square expresses its approval of Call Me Dave's views on the internet.
I feel unclean.
I feel unclean.
Friday, 12 August 2011
Banning always works
I don't really have anything to add to this fantastic blog post which highlights the gap between the nobility of intention of stupid politicians and the harsh truth or the real world.
Other than, perhaps: WHY DO YOU FUCKING CUNTS NEVER LEARN?
Other than, perhaps: WHY DO YOU FUCKING CUNTS NEVER LEARN?
@LouiseMensch is a fucking idiot
I had an argument with a fellow twatterer about his MP. He said she was one of the good guys and wouldn't hear a bad word about her.
I, on the other hand, explicitly distrust anyone who goes into politics as being someone who thinks they know better than anyone else how we should live our lives. And if you climb the greasy pole far enough to actually become an MP, then you must be a mendacious, bullying cunt of the highest order.
And so it came to pass. First we had:
Northamptonshire Police advise me that much of their time and resources were wasted answering false alarms due to soc media rumours.
Then:
Twitter regularly down for maintenance, and if in a major national emergency police think Twitter and FB should take an hour off? So be it
(Firstly, Twitter doesn't fucking regularly go down for maintenance, you daft bint, it's a 24x7 operation that isn't supposed to go down AT ALL. Likewise Facebook.
Secondly, the only way you can stop access to Facebook and Twitter is to completely disable access to all websites. I'm not even sure this is technically possible. It would certainly destroy every online business in the UK.
Still think it's a good idea?)
Then:
I don't have a problem with a brief temporary shutdown of social media just as I don't have a problem with a brief road or rail closure.
See above.
Then:
If short, necessary and only used in an emergency, so what. We'd all survive if Twitter shut down for a short while during major riots.
How often are you expecting major riots, Louise? Are you privy to some information that us plebs aren't entitled to?
Anyway, there more stupid tweets about maintenance and stuff, and then we get this gem:
And really, stop w/ all the dramatics. Nobody is talking about "shutting down Twitter". It's about listening to police & a couple hours off.
So here we have it: one of the "good guys" in politics thinks it's absolutely fine that the police (the fucking POLICE!) should have the power to shut down everybody in the UK's access to social networking because of a few miscreants that they can't handle. Never mind that in doing so they'd have to cut everybody in the UK off from the web completely. Never mind that it would lay waste to every online business in the UK at the same time.
If that's what a "good" politician thinks, can you imagine what the rest of them think?
It's so true, scratch a politician, any politician and you'll find a closet fascist.
I, on the other hand, explicitly distrust anyone who goes into politics as being someone who thinks they know better than anyone else how we should live our lives. And if you climb the greasy pole far enough to actually become an MP, then you must be a mendacious, bullying cunt of the highest order.
And so it came to pass. First we had:
Northamptonshire Police advise me that much of their time and resources were wasted answering false alarms due to soc media rumours.
Then:
Twitter regularly down for maintenance, and if in a major national emergency police think Twitter and FB should take an hour off? So be it
(Firstly, Twitter doesn't fucking regularly go down for maintenance, you daft bint, it's a 24x7 operation that isn't supposed to go down AT ALL. Likewise Facebook.
Secondly, the only way you can stop access to Facebook and Twitter is to completely disable access to all websites. I'm not even sure this is technically possible. It would certainly destroy every online business in the UK.
Still think it's a good idea?)
Then:
I don't have a problem with a brief temporary shutdown of social media just as I don't have a problem with a brief road or rail closure.
See above.
Then:
If short, necessary and only used in an emergency, so what. We'd all survive if Twitter shut down for a short while during major riots.
How often are you expecting major riots, Louise? Are you privy to some information that us plebs aren't entitled to?
Anyway, there more stupid tweets about maintenance and stuff, and then we get this gem:
And really, stop w/ all the dramatics. Nobody is talking about "shutting down Twitter". It's about listening to police & a couple hours off.
So here we have it: one of the "good guys" in politics thinks it's absolutely fine that the police (the fucking POLICE!) should have the power to shut down everybody in the UK's access to social networking because of a few miscreants that they can't handle. Never mind that in doing so they'd have to cut everybody in the UK off from the web completely. Never mind that it would lay waste to every online business in the UK at the same time.
If that's what a "good" politician thinks, can you imagine what the rest of them think?
It's so true, scratch a politician, any politician and you'll find a closet fascist.
Ban Twitter!
Tory MPs, earlier
Call Me Dave has responded to the riots and violence in a way that any Fabian would approve of: he has called for the ability to shut down BBM and Twitter to prevent violence from happening.
This is despite the fact that in other countries, twitter and so on are considered (by fucking Call Me Dave!) to be good for democracy.
Typical fucking politician, cheering something that looks good when it happens to someone else, but quick to shut it down when he thinks it's bad for his proles.
This despite the fact that a zillion people used BBM and Twitter without fucking needing to riot.
Is there anything in iDave's fucking bullshit posturing and hypocrisy that would not be familiar to a student of New Labour? Of course not, they are all the fucking same, apart from the tie colour.
Thieves, cunts, bullies and fucking fascists. Hang the lot of them.
Post script: more appropriate response from the wonderful, infalling, completely trustworthy state.
Fucking cunts.
Thursday, 11 August 2011
I didn't predict a riot
Lord knows how many days of riots now. Spreading like a rash over London, with sporadic incidents of related violence in Birmingham and Leeds and Bristol and Lord knows where else. People have died.
I am acquainted with a local rozzer and if what she's telling me is true, it's either going to, or already has kicked off in some unlikely, sleepy places.
Out of nowhere, mass uprisings of what really do appear to be nothing more than well-organised scrotes are going out and indulging in some high-impact shopping.
It's quite mind-boggling. Lefties have been quick to leap on the bandwagon of "Tory cuts", but since I see no evidence of cuts anywhere, I am forced to conclude that they're talking bullshit.
In fact, I want to say some more about this. When I was a kid, my parents were not, by any definition of the word, rich. I went to a "theme park" exactly once as a child, and we literally had just enough money to get in. We trudged around the park looking at the exhibits and stuff, did all the free things and then left. We didn't even have enough money to buy a cold drink. I was not inundated with the latest consumer playthings. As soon as I was legally able to, I went and got a job.
My parents provided me with clothes, food and a roof over my head. I never went out to riot, the idea never even occurred to me.
This just looks like a mad surge of thugs out to help themselves to new TVs and various other bits and pieces. Expect a massive surge of cheap electronics on eBay next week.
I am actually quite angered by "the left" blaming this on social deprivation and a lack of role models. First of all, the state has, for decades been visibly throwing money at "social deprivation" at the behest of the left, and now it's clearly not working and the argument is that we need to throw more money at it, because it just wasn't enough? By far the biggest component of state spending is on welfare. And now more spending on welfare will have a better result?
And the lack of role models thing really gets on my tits. By making it viable for any woman to be a single parent, by making it reasonably easy for a single woman to raise children on their own, what the cunting fuck did they think was going to happen? I mean, you can argue the case for single mum-ness, and you can argue the case for lack of good role models, but you can't have that particular cake AND eat it. All the single mothers I know take their parental duties seriously, and that included not having an abusive or useless father in the house.
And fair play to them, it's easier to be a single mother than make the effort of going off to find a decent father figure who can also provide. I don't make light of the effort required to find a decent and compatible man. But then you can't wring your hands and say that somehow this violent behaviour is excusable because the perpetrators don't have a good role model in their life. Your policies have made it much more likely that they would grow up like this.
Some of the stories I've read have been horrifying, like this tale of an injured boy being casually mugged by looters.
It is one of our worst nightmares, really, a mass insurgency of violent, amoral thugs, storming homes and shops, casually burning buildings and cars and looting with apparent impunity. And it came out of nowhere. The ostensible cause of it all, the shooting of an allegedly armed man, bears no relation to the scale and delightful social inclusiveness of the subsequent rioting.
Scuttlebutt is that the looters are using a number of social media sites and tools to organise the looting with nearly military precision.
The police have been rocked back on their feet. BoJo and the massively-foreheaded cunt have curtailed their summer holidays. Cameron has been photographed repeatedly looking serious, pensive and statesmanlike, while BoJo has apparently disgraced himself completely and made a laughingstock of himself. Both of these underscore just how much use modern politicians are.
Of course, far be it from me to point out that one of the great advantages of a state is that it protects us from things like this happening. Or so I'm told, repeatedly. Without a state, we would descend into mayhem and nihilism. Mindless violence and thuggish theft would rule the day.
I'm so glad that the state has prevented this from happening out of the blue.
The truth is, the inability of the police to bring this under control underlines the value of the state quite clearly. Eventually, the thugs will get bored and run out of easy prey and it will quieten down and the state will claim victory.
Sadly, that will not be the case.
The state has been systematically removing the normal tools of ensuring civility and cooperation from us. They claim a monopoly on defending us from violence, exhorting us not to resort to evil vigilantism. But if you look at how useless they've been at stopping this from happening, it's abundantly clear that it really cannot protect us from the one thing that "everyone" agrees that we need a state for.
The thugs will eventually get bored and go do something else. The police will arrest a trivial number of them and by the time they get to trial, the usual hand-wringing bollocks will kick in and nobody will get an appropriate punishment. Insurance and the taxpayer will pick up the pieces and a couple of businesses will be shut down, further destroying jobs and inflicting poverty and misery on innocent people.
We will be told that the state has sorted things out, when in truth boredom and apathy will be the only things that actually stop the mindless violence.
The only people who will wind up paying for this will be taxpayers and anyone who actually pays insurance. Thugs will be reassured that no-one will actually do anything to stop them if they ever feel the urge again and we will all be worse off.
And still the sheep will cry out that the state is necessary to protect us from this exact thing, that the state prevents it from happening more. Therefore we need more state, so that the state can protect us even more.
It makes me weep.
I am acquainted with a local rozzer and if what she's telling me is true, it's either going to, or already has kicked off in some unlikely, sleepy places.
Out of nowhere, mass uprisings of what really do appear to be nothing more than well-organised scrotes are going out and indulging in some high-impact shopping.
It's quite mind-boggling. Lefties have been quick to leap on the bandwagon of "Tory cuts", but since I see no evidence of cuts anywhere, I am forced to conclude that they're talking bullshit.
In fact, I want to say some more about this. When I was a kid, my parents were not, by any definition of the word, rich. I went to a "theme park" exactly once as a child, and we literally had just enough money to get in. We trudged around the park looking at the exhibits and stuff, did all the free things and then left. We didn't even have enough money to buy a cold drink. I was not inundated with the latest consumer playthings. As soon as I was legally able to, I went and got a job.
My parents provided me with clothes, food and a roof over my head. I never went out to riot, the idea never even occurred to me.
This just looks like a mad surge of thugs out to help themselves to new TVs and various other bits and pieces. Expect a massive surge of cheap electronics on eBay next week.
I am actually quite angered by "the left" blaming this on social deprivation and a lack of role models. First of all, the state has, for decades been visibly throwing money at "social deprivation" at the behest of the left, and now it's clearly not working and the argument is that we need to throw more money at it, because it just wasn't enough? By far the biggest component of state spending is on welfare. And now more spending on welfare will have a better result?
And the lack of role models thing really gets on my tits. By making it viable for any woman to be a single parent, by making it reasonably easy for a single woman to raise children on their own, what the cunting fuck did they think was going to happen? I mean, you can argue the case for single mum-ness, and you can argue the case for lack of good role models, but you can't have that particular cake AND eat it. All the single mothers I know take their parental duties seriously, and that included not having an abusive or useless father in the house.
And fair play to them, it's easier to be a single mother than make the effort of going off to find a decent father figure who can also provide. I don't make light of the effort required to find a decent and compatible man. But then you can't wring your hands and say that somehow this violent behaviour is excusable because the perpetrators don't have a good role model in their life. Your policies have made it much more likely that they would grow up like this.
Some of the stories I've read have been horrifying, like this tale of an injured boy being casually mugged by looters.
It is one of our worst nightmares, really, a mass insurgency of violent, amoral thugs, storming homes and shops, casually burning buildings and cars and looting with apparent impunity. And it came out of nowhere. The ostensible cause of it all, the shooting of an allegedly armed man, bears no relation to the scale and delightful social inclusiveness of the subsequent rioting.
Scuttlebutt is that the looters are using a number of social media sites and tools to organise the looting with nearly military precision.
The police have been rocked back on their feet. BoJo and the massively-foreheaded cunt have curtailed their summer holidays. Cameron has been photographed repeatedly looking serious, pensive and statesmanlike, while BoJo has apparently disgraced himself completely and made a laughingstock of himself. Both of these underscore just how much use modern politicians are.
Of course, far be it from me to point out that one of the great advantages of a state is that it protects us from things like this happening. Or so I'm told, repeatedly. Without a state, we would descend into mayhem and nihilism. Mindless violence and thuggish theft would rule the day.
I'm so glad that the state has prevented this from happening out of the blue.
The truth is, the inability of the police to bring this under control underlines the value of the state quite clearly. Eventually, the thugs will get bored and run out of easy prey and it will quieten down and the state will claim victory.
Sadly, that will not be the case.
The state has been systematically removing the normal tools of ensuring civility and cooperation from us. They claim a monopoly on defending us from violence, exhorting us not to resort to evil vigilantism. But if you look at how useless they've been at stopping this from happening, it's abundantly clear that it really cannot protect us from the one thing that "everyone" agrees that we need a state for.
The thugs will eventually get bored and go do something else. The police will arrest a trivial number of them and by the time they get to trial, the usual hand-wringing bollocks will kick in and nobody will get an appropriate punishment. Insurance and the taxpayer will pick up the pieces and a couple of businesses will be shut down, further destroying jobs and inflicting poverty and misery on innocent people.
We will be told that the state has sorted things out, when in truth boredom and apathy will be the only things that actually stop the mindless violence.
The only people who will wind up paying for this will be taxpayers and anyone who actually pays insurance. Thugs will be reassured that no-one will actually do anything to stop them if they ever feel the urge again and we will all be worse off.
And still the sheep will cry out that the state is necessary to protect us from this exact thing, that the state prevents it from happening more. Therefore we need more state, so that the state can protect us even more.
It makes me weep.
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
School punishment (for @danoprey )
Earlier this week I had one of those frustrating conversations on Twitter where I wasn't expressing myself clearly but I also came to realise that I was maybe holding on to some lazy assumptions.
The discussion revolved around whether it was necessary to beat children at school or not. I grew up in an environment where getting beaten by a teacher was nothing exceptional. Daniel felt that this was going to teach children that violence was a valid way of life.
My gut reaction was "for fuck's sake, it's not violence", but actually, of course, it is.
The whole situation in which I was educated was completely different: parents were much stricter and there was a general consensus that parents expected teachers to maintain strict discipline and that if you got punished, you deserved it. In fact, if you got punished at school, you'd almost certainly wind up getting punished again at home.
But there's more than one aspect to this violence. Firstly, it was not dished out casually. You had to explicitly transgress a fundamental rule. Teachers would always give ample warning. I never once got a beating or saw anyone else get a beating where I thought "that was patently unfair."*
Female teachers were obviously not going to administer corporal punishment, so you got sent to the headmaster, which was another level of scary.
It all took place in a spirit of respect and fairness. The teachers knew that the school was populated by testosterone-charged teenagers and that sometimes things would happen. Discipline was appallingly strict compared to what my daughter sees today, but I never felt like it got in the way of my education or my development as a person. (Maybe it did, but I didn't feel like it did, and that's what mattered to me.)
And the teachers respected us as much as we respected them. I don't for a moment imagine that beating someone inspires respect, but I respected my teachers as teachers, not because of their ability to beat me. I still remember them fondly, and regard them as inspirational, amazing people and I wish that all children could experience teachers like that.
But they don't, as we now have an environment where teachers feel it's appropriate to be "down wiv da yoof" and banter with the kids as equals.
You may well argue that we are all equal, and that's a valid perspective, but why the hell would you pay the blindest bit of attention to your "mate" when he tries to chastise you for your inappropriate behaviour?
So, as much as it's discriminatory, I can definitely see the logic in teachers being aloof, rather than trying to be all matey-matey. But aloofness, a strict (if commonsense) code of conduct and respect from teachers can only do so much to maintain discipline.
If a student is being disruptive, there is a need to restore order. If you reason with them, or point out that they are disruptive and they still carry on, the teacher has to have an effective sanction.
And here I get a bit lost as a libertarian. Currently, it seems like a student can be sent out of the class. That's great, but it means that the student misses the lesson.
@danoprey would rather see the disruptive student excluded from the lesson, and it being upgraded to excluded from the school if necessary. This will mean the student being sent to the office (which they may or may not do, unless accompanied, which means more disruption). Then there has to be some sort of appeals process to ensure that teachers are being reasonable. Then there has to be some sort of reasonable escalation process before someone is completely excluded to make sure that someone is given sufficient chance. And somebody has to keep completely accurate track of this.
This is all possible, I suppose, but I can see it becoming a lot more disruptive and time consuming overall.
I would rather see a swift punishment administered that means that focus can be regained and the class can continue with a minimum of disruption and that the offender is not prevented from learning.
And assuming all the other things are in place, like the code of conduct and mutual respect and all the rest, I can't really see what, other than a couple of smacks with a cane, will fulfil that role.
*I did once get a beating that was completely undeserved. But even at the time, as the "crime" was happening, I could see why the teachers thought I had transgressed, plus, I'd have had to snitch on a classmate to protect my arse. And that was beyond the pale.
The discussion revolved around whether it was necessary to beat children at school or not. I grew up in an environment where getting beaten by a teacher was nothing exceptional. Daniel felt that this was going to teach children that violence was a valid way of life.
My gut reaction was "for fuck's sake, it's not violence", but actually, of course, it is.
The whole situation in which I was educated was completely different: parents were much stricter and there was a general consensus that parents expected teachers to maintain strict discipline and that if you got punished, you deserved it. In fact, if you got punished at school, you'd almost certainly wind up getting punished again at home.
But there's more than one aspect to this violence. Firstly, it was not dished out casually. You had to explicitly transgress a fundamental rule. Teachers would always give ample warning. I never once got a beating or saw anyone else get a beating where I thought "that was patently unfair."*
Female teachers were obviously not going to administer corporal punishment, so you got sent to the headmaster, which was another level of scary.
It all took place in a spirit of respect and fairness. The teachers knew that the school was populated by testosterone-charged teenagers and that sometimes things would happen. Discipline was appallingly strict compared to what my daughter sees today, but I never felt like it got in the way of my education or my development as a person. (Maybe it did, but I didn't feel like it did, and that's what mattered to me.)
And the teachers respected us as much as we respected them. I don't for a moment imagine that beating someone inspires respect, but I respected my teachers as teachers, not because of their ability to beat me. I still remember them fondly, and regard them as inspirational, amazing people and I wish that all children could experience teachers like that.
But they don't, as we now have an environment where teachers feel it's appropriate to be "down wiv da yoof" and banter with the kids as equals.
You may well argue that we are all equal, and that's a valid perspective, but why the hell would you pay the blindest bit of attention to your "mate" when he tries to chastise you for your inappropriate behaviour?
So, as much as it's discriminatory, I can definitely see the logic in teachers being aloof, rather than trying to be all matey-matey. But aloofness, a strict (if commonsense) code of conduct and respect from teachers can only do so much to maintain discipline.
If a student is being disruptive, there is a need to restore order. If you reason with them, or point out that they are disruptive and they still carry on, the teacher has to have an effective sanction.
And here I get a bit lost as a libertarian. Currently, it seems like a student can be sent out of the class. That's great, but it means that the student misses the lesson.
@danoprey would rather see the disruptive student excluded from the lesson, and it being upgraded to excluded from the school if necessary. This will mean the student being sent to the office (which they may or may not do, unless accompanied, which means more disruption). Then there has to be some sort of appeals process to ensure that teachers are being reasonable. Then there has to be some sort of reasonable escalation process before someone is completely excluded to make sure that someone is given sufficient chance. And somebody has to keep completely accurate track of this.
This is all possible, I suppose, but I can see it becoming a lot more disruptive and time consuming overall.
I would rather see a swift punishment administered that means that focus can be regained and the class can continue with a minimum of disruption and that the offender is not prevented from learning.
And assuming all the other things are in place, like the code of conduct and mutual respect and all the rest, I can't really see what, other than a couple of smacks with a cane, will fulfil that role.
*I did once get a beating that was completely undeserved. But even at the time, as the "crime" was happening, I could see why the teachers thought I had transgressed, plus, I'd have had to snitch on a classmate to protect my arse. And that was beyond the pale.
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
TEA Party this, TEA Party that...
I am increasingly fucking irritated by the habit of socialist twats to ascribe everything to the American TEA Party.
The Taxed Enough Already Party, let's just remind ourselves, is a grassroots movement of American citizens who feel that the federal government takes enough tax from them, thank you very much, and that maybe the government should stop pissing taxpayers' money away on corporatist "bailouts" (transfers of wealth from the poor to the very rich), vanity projects and pork-barrel politics (where a bill gets passed as long as the congressmen who support it get some money passed back to their sponsors and mates.)
The TEA Party is also a reference to the Boston Tea Party, the start of the American Revolution, which was about taxation without representation above all else. Currently, a significant number of American citizens feel that their government spending is out of control and that their votes are not sufficient to counteract what government is doing in their name.
Here in the UK we feel the same, nobody actually feels like government is acting for the people, but rather than do something about it, it's much easier for us to sneer at our lunatic colonial cousins.
I don't know about you, but I don't think any half-way sane person could object to the motives of the TEA Party. It is a direct expression of the will of the people, and it's a direct objection to the way government actually works: government does what it thinks is best, not what the people want it to do.
It is unsurprising that bandwagon-jumping loonies would be keen to rail-road such visible popular politics into their particular brand of statist politics, but that is not what the TEA Party is about.
The latest fucking stupidity I heard was that the TEA Party was being blamed for the downgrading of America's credit rating. Well, that's fucking bollocks:
In other words, S&P cut the long-term rating precisely because the TEA Party did not get what they wanted.
People in the UK need to stop venerating the government.
The government takes your money, spends it very badly on delivering things because it's just a way of hiding transfers of wealth from you to multi-national businesses. The government takes us to wars that we have no business fighting, leading us to be responsible for the deaths of thousands or millions of innocent people on the other side of the planet. The government sticks its nose in to things which are none of its business.
All these people who seem to equate society with the government are leading us down a very dangerous path.
Lazy journalists who attack businesses for being tax efficient because that starves the government implicitly seem to feel that the government deserves to have our money for whatever fucking nonsense they want to do next.
Cheerleaders for government spending ignore the fact that most government spending is simply transferring money from you and me into the hands of Accenture, Capita, ATOS, Cap Gemini, Capita, etc.
Stop being cunts and fucking think about what you're saying for a change.
The Taxed Enough Already Party, let's just remind ourselves, is a grassroots movement of American citizens who feel that the federal government takes enough tax from them, thank you very much, and that maybe the government should stop pissing taxpayers' money away on corporatist "bailouts" (transfers of wealth from the poor to the very rich), vanity projects and pork-barrel politics (where a bill gets passed as long as the congressmen who support it get some money passed back to their sponsors and mates.)
The TEA Party is also a reference to the Boston Tea Party, the start of the American Revolution, which was about taxation without representation above all else. Currently, a significant number of American citizens feel that their government spending is out of control and that their votes are not sufficient to counteract what government is doing in their name.
Here in the UK we feel the same, nobody actually feels like government is acting for the people, but rather than do something about it, it's much easier for us to sneer at our lunatic colonial cousins.
I don't know about you, but I don't think any half-way sane person could object to the motives of the TEA Party. It is a direct expression of the will of the people, and it's a direct objection to the way government actually works: government does what it thinks is best, not what the people want it to do.
It is unsurprising that bandwagon-jumping loonies would be keen to rail-road such visible popular politics into their particular brand of statist politics, but that is not what the TEA Party is about.
The latest fucking stupidity I heard was that the TEA Party was being blamed for the downgrading of America's credit rating. Well, that's fucking bollocks:
S&P cut the long-term US rating by one notch to AA+ with a negative outlook, citing concerns about budget deficits.
The agency said the deficit reduction plan passed by the US Congress on Tuesday did not go far enough.
In other words, S&P cut the long-term rating precisely because the TEA Party did not get what they wanted.
People in the UK need to stop venerating the government.
The government takes your money, spends it very badly on delivering things because it's just a way of hiding transfers of wealth from you to multi-national businesses. The government takes us to wars that we have no business fighting, leading us to be responsible for the deaths of thousands or millions of innocent people on the other side of the planet. The government sticks its nose in to things which are none of its business.
All these people who seem to equate society with the government are leading us down a very dangerous path.
Lazy journalists who attack businesses for being tax efficient because that starves the government implicitly seem to feel that the government deserves to have our money for whatever fucking nonsense they want to do next.
Cheerleaders for government spending ignore the fact that most government spending is simply transferring money from you and me into the hands of Accenture, Capita, ATOS, Cap Gemini, Capita, etc.
Stop being cunts and fucking think about what you're saying for a change.
Monday, 8 August 2011
Why Tory economic policy is doomed to fail
It's a conundrum for everyone who cries out that a smaller government inevitably leads to economic growth.
Hence, libertarians and "small-c conservatives" are all calling for cuts, yet despite all the evidence of cuts being trumpeted left, right and centre, economic growth is flaccid, limp and in desperate need of economic Viagra.
The cuts are smoke and mirrors. Inflation is kicking in, services are being cut, especially at the frontline, and yet growth isn't happening. "Progressives" and tribal Labour supporters are jeering that this is proof that government spending is vital.
But the truth is that we're not seeing the whole truth.
The previous government spent money it didn't have like a drunken sailor in port for the first time in 18 months. Banks were bailed out, vanity projects were finances, PFI skullduggery was rampant.
And when governments do cut spending, they always cut at the frontline first, because that way it hurts people the most so they start screaming for services to be reinstated.
In a business, you cut the frontline as late as possible, because those are the people bringing the money in. It's always possible to make managers manage more people or combine functions so that you can get shot of people in the back office.
But the motivations are different in the two cases. Businesses want to make a profit and retain customers. Governments want to build empires and fuck people around.
So while there may be small cuts happening in government service provision, there aren't cuts in taxes from the savings made. And because there are no cuts in taxes, it's impossible for individual spending to make up for the cuts in government spending.
Taxes are still sky-high, and that's because of the massive debt. The debt isn't even being attacked, all that the government is trying to do is clear the deficit, which is the gap between current income and expenditure. When they've done this, they will still be left with the legacy of debt that needs to be paid off. But at least then they'll be able to start paying off historical debt.
And the other side of the government spending issue is that government spending isn't actually going down. By the time the Tories get kicked out of power again, government will have spent more every year than even that insane Scottish spendthrift maniac could spunk out in his desperate attempts to buy votes. It's just being spent on paying for debt.
So if the currently fuckwit Lib Dem and "Red Tory" hold on taxing the people who actually work to death, while spunking money out on their pointless vanity projects continues, the best that we can hope for is that some miniscule growth will happen and that somehow Gideon will pay off some of the debt so that the next lot of delusional cuntwanks can start the whole "pissing other people's money away" lark again.
Personally, I can't wait. I'm fucking off to Lichtenstein.
Hence, libertarians and "small-c conservatives" are all calling for cuts, yet despite all the evidence of cuts being trumpeted left, right and centre, economic growth is flaccid, limp and in desperate need of economic Viagra.
The cuts are smoke and mirrors. Inflation is kicking in, services are being cut, especially at the frontline, and yet growth isn't happening. "Progressives" and tribal Labour supporters are jeering that this is proof that government spending is vital.
But the truth is that we're not seeing the whole truth.
The previous government spent money it didn't have like a drunken sailor in port for the first time in 18 months. Banks were bailed out, vanity projects were finances, PFI skullduggery was rampant.
And when governments do cut spending, they always cut at the frontline first, because that way it hurts people the most so they start screaming for services to be reinstated.
In a business, you cut the frontline as late as possible, because those are the people bringing the money in. It's always possible to make managers manage more people or combine functions so that you can get shot of people in the back office.
But the motivations are different in the two cases. Businesses want to make a profit and retain customers. Governments want to build empires and fuck people around.
So while there may be small cuts happening in government service provision, there aren't cuts in taxes from the savings made. And because there are no cuts in taxes, it's impossible for individual spending to make up for the cuts in government spending.
Taxes are still sky-high, and that's because of the massive debt. The debt isn't even being attacked, all that the government is trying to do is clear the deficit, which is the gap between current income and expenditure. When they've done this, they will still be left with the legacy of debt that needs to be paid off. But at least then they'll be able to start paying off historical debt.
And the other side of the government spending issue is that government spending isn't actually going down. By the time the Tories get kicked out of power again, government will have spent more every year than even that insane Scottish spendthrift maniac could spunk out in his desperate attempts to buy votes. It's just being spent on paying for debt.
So if the currently fuckwit Lib Dem and "Red Tory" hold on taxing the people who actually work to death, while spunking money out on their pointless vanity projects continues, the best that we can hope for is that some miniscule growth will happen and that somehow Gideon will pay off some of the debt so that the next lot of delusional cuntwanks can start the whole "pissing other people's money away" lark again.
Personally, I can't wait. I'm fucking off to Lichtenstein.
Sunday, 7 August 2011
Terrifying!
Update: It seems like this is not the truth any more. However, the actual truth is hard to ascertain, because the Home Office website says it's seven days, while Damian Green says it's fourteen.
So much for a quick blog then.
Saturday, 6 August 2011
Friday, 5 August 2011
The old ones are the best!
Yes, you moronic twat, your profligate money-pissing saved the world.
In other news, this:
Wall Street had its worst day for almost three years as shares tumbled on fears about the eurozone debt crisis and the US economic recovery.
The Dow Jones index closed down more than 500 points, or 4.3%, and came after the leading European bourses fell more than 3%.
It was the biggest one-day fall for the Dow since October 2008.
Earlier, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso warned that the sovereign debt crisis was spreading.*
Also in New York, the S&P 500 index fell 4.8% and the tech-rich Nasdaq was more than 5% lower.
Meanwhile, Frankfurt's Dax and London's FTSE 100 indexes had their worst day this year, closing almost 3.5% lower as investors fretted that Italy and Spain might become engulfed in the debt crisis.
"People are throwing in the towel because they can't find relief on any front," said Milton Ezrati, market strategist at Lord Abbett.
Investors sought the relative safety of gold, sending the price of the metal to a new record high of $1,677 an ounce.
Christ knows how many billions of pounds Brown's stupidity has cost us. Every time someone does the sums, it turns out that if we'd held on to the gold, it would have been worth more and more.
Obama's bailout of every greedy cunt who stuck their hand out has clearly fucking worked well.
Rather than actually addressing the structural and fundamental financial issues, it looks like a handful of companies got huge amounts of taxpayer funding thrown at them which has helped to the extent of the square root of fuck-all, as far as I can tell.
The Teleprompter Jesus has failed to save the US. The snotmuncher failed to save us. The collective wisdom of Gollum and his fuckwit elves is clearly not saving the EU.
The only upside of this is that by the looks of it, the Euro is going to go down the shitter in a hurry, so my holiday should be a cheap round this year.
*In February, Barroso displayed his deep financial knowledge by claiming that the Euro would protect the EU from default issues. The cunt.
Anarchy and the death penalty
Everybody has been banging on about the prospect of resurrecting (as it were!) the death sentence in the UK.
And just to get it out of the way, like every right-thinking person, I'd be absolutely in favour of killing some brutal mass-murderer or child-killer if it was cut and dried that they'd done it.
But the truth is, it's almost impossible to find a case where its cut and dried who did it and why they did it and that there were no extenuating circumstances. Even a voluntary confession is by no means conclusive, and despite all the crap you see on CSI, most crime scenes are nowhere near as conclusive. DNA isn't conclusive either. And even CCTV and so on can be misleading or tampered with.
And that's before we even get on to the dozens of miscarriages of justice that have been waved through British courts over the centuries.
Be honest, even if you were absolutely certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that someone was guilty of a heinous murder, would you still want their death on your conscience? Would you, personally, actually be able to flick that switch? I wouldn't.
So, we are at a point where there is no fucking way I'm going to endorse the death sentence anyway.
Furthermore, it goes without saying that I have massive reservations about the state deciding not only who should die, but which "crimes" deserve the ultimate punishment. (One that had me wondering about the sanity of the person saying it was "cop-killer". Why is killing a cop worse than killing anyone else? And why should someone who is quite happy to enforce blatant bullshit laws for victimless crimes be regarded as anything but a thug in the service of other thugs?)
The state is happy to go to war, happy to funnel money from taxpayers to large corporates, clamp down on our freedoms "for our own good", and so on. Given the glorious judgment shown by the government in deposing Saddam Hussein (and elsewhere!) do you really want them deciding which crimes deserve to have the ultimate sanction?
And just to get it out of the way, like every right-thinking person, I'd be absolutely in favour of killing some brutal mass-murderer or child-killer if it was cut and dried that they'd done it.
But the truth is, it's almost impossible to find a case where its cut and dried who did it and why they did it and that there were no extenuating circumstances. Even a voluntary confession is by no means conclusive, and despite all the crap you see on CSI, most crime scenes are nowhere near as conclusive. DNA isn't conclusive either. And even CCTV and so on can be misleading or tampered with.
And that's before we even get on to the dozens of miscarriages of justice that have been waved through British courts over the centuries.
Be honest, even if you were absolutely certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that someone was guilty of a heinous murder, would you still want their death on your conscience? Would you, personally, actually be able to flick that switch? I wouldn't.
So, we are at a point where there is no fucking way I'm going to endorse the death sentence anyway.
Furthermore, it goes without saying that I have massive reservations about the state deciding not only who should die, but which "crimes" deserve the ultimate punishment. (One that had me wondering about the sanity of the person saying it was "cop-killer". Why is killing a cop worse than killing anyone else? And why should someone who is quite happy to enforce blatant bullshit laws for victimless crimes be regarded as anything but a thug in the service of other thugs?)
The state is happy to go to war, happy to funnel money from taxpayers to large corporates, clamp down on our freedoms "for our own good", and so on. Given the glorious judgment shown by the government in deposing Saddam Hussein (and elsewhere!) do you really want them deciding which crimes deserve to have the ultimate sanction?
Thursday, 4 August 2011
The invisible man on Twitter
"*"
- Oliver Letwin on Twitter
Clearly, Mr Letwin is a man of few words on twitter, although he recently said a mouthful elsewhere:
Oliver Letwin, the coalition's policy minister, has revealed the government's determination to instil "fear" among those working in the public sector, who he claimed had failed for the past 20 years to improve their productivity.
I really have no idea what he means.
Although at a recent social gathering, a Treasury civil servant tried to convince me that civil servants are not overpaid, by outlining the salary the Treasury's head of Child Poverty was likely to attract.
When I pointed out that in real terms, the UK not only has no actual poverty, but actually has no idea what poverty even looks like, I could see the rolling eyes. When I pointed out that the average person in Africa would regard the life of the meanest, poorest dole-bludger in a Glasgow tenement as a life of complete luxury and ease, the penny dropped.
The problem is not that there are not hard-working civil servants. I'm sure that if you looked around hard enough, you could find a handful. But even if you ignore the bureaucratic empire-building that goes on, with five people doing the work of two, there is still the fundamental problem of productivity. That the Treasury has a department, however small or large it may be, to deal with a problem that does not exist in reality, but only exists in the minds and tick-box targets of empire-building civil servants, simply indicates where a large part of the problem is.
My employer is a massive, bureaucratic monster. But even they don't employ a Department of Child Poverty. It's got nothing to do with the continued success of the business. (This despite my employer having a positively annoying number of diversity and inclusion fora and voluntary social outreach programs.)
But the Treasury gets money no matter what it does. And perversely, the more it fucks up and the more stupid ideas it has, the more of our money it can take.
In essence, for every hard-working civil servant (apparently 14-hours a day is a lot!) there are rooms full of dross, people who may mean well, who may have families to feed and all the rest, but in truth are just sucking up everyone else's money and resources and there are also entire departments that exist for no other reason than somebody with sufficient clout in the organisation wanted them to exist.
Letwin, architect of the coalition's plans to reform public services, told a meeting at the offices of a leading consultancy firm that the public sector had atrophied over the past two decades.
I think Letwin is wearing rosy specs here. The public sector has been atrophying since it was born.
In controversial comments angering teachers, nurses and doctors, he warned that it was only through "some real discipline and some fear" of job losses that excellence would be achieved in the public sector.
Ah, "teachers, nurses and doctors", the Holy Trinity of the left-leaning twat. Because of course, admin clerks and the rest don't really matter do they? But anger a teacher and WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHEEEEEELDREN? Not to mention the saintly, untouchable NHS!
So, every other civil servant, be told: you don't matter. Only teachers, nurses and doctors matter. Even the Guardian thinks the rest of you are scum**.
Letwin added that some of those running schools and hospitals would not survive the process and that it was an "inevitable and intended" consequence of government policy.
"You can't have room for innovation and the pressure for excellence without having some real discipline and some fear on the part of the providers that things may go wrong if they don't live up to the aims that society as a whole is demanding of them," he said.
And this is the nub of the argument, and probably the only time I'm going to agree with an MP.
I compete in my job. I have to impress my manager just to keep my job. I have to compete with the people in my team, I have to show willing, I have to excel to show I deserve my bonus. There is always some or other headcount reduction (or other cost reduction) program going on. But because I'm doing my job well and making the difference, I'm not worried about losing my job.
I would do it anyway, because it's not just the technology that excites me, I like making a difference and making problems go away. But if I was going to collect the same salary whether I bust a gut or not and I knew I'd never lose my job, I'm pretty sure there would be days where I would pull a sickie or get hammered the night before and sit in the office playing Freecell. And who knows, it might get to be addictive and maybe I'd stop working altogether, become a Wally in Dilbert-speak.
But along with the carrot of job satisfaction is the fact that I'm a parent with a kid to feed and my job is not guaranteed for life.
"If you have diversity of provision and personal choice and power, some providers will be better and some worse. Inevitably, some will not, whether it's because they can't attract the patient or the pupil, for example, or because they can't get results and hence can't get paid. Some will not survive. It is an inevitable and intended consequence of what we are talking about."
I really can't see why lefties are up in a froth over this. Do they really believe that if someone is a shit doctor and patients don't want to see them, they should get paid (and presumably still be doctors as well)? If someone is a useless teacher, would you want them teaching your kids?
Of course you fucking don't. So why the hell are you pretending that any of this is controversial?
*@oliverletwin hasn't tweeted yet.
**This is a joke. I think.
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Monday, 1 August 2011
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