"I think the media has assumed up to now that this inchoate left-right revolt would have a walk-on part in the near inevitable passage of the TARP. Wrongly as it turns out. This is now a river that has burst the banks of official politics."
Paul Mason
I know that me and my kind are going to pay for all this eventually, but seeing share prices tumble, and seeing houses stolen from those who need public housing losing their value, SCHADENFREUDE.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
Speaking to reporters on the eve of his performance, McCartney said: "The world knows about the conflicts that have been in that region and I like to think that if I go to a place it becomes evident that my message is a peaceful one and I hope that the idea will spread." He added: "People ask this question through the years: 'Do you think music can change things?' I think it can. I think it's good for people's souls. I think without music it would be a seriously bad world. I'm bringing a message of peace, and I think that's what the region needs."What a creep, and so full of himself - as pompous and as useless as Nobo.
"Israel asked US for green light to bomb nuclear sites in Iran"(Headline from the same edition)
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Half the population has seen very little real growth in recent years, and the bottom third has suffered an absolute fall in income for five years. People feel it, yet no one says it. As Labour blathered on about high GDP growth, whose growth was that? Official figures show it was among the top 20%, and mostly the top 5%....
Centrica's chief executive has just had a £1m pay increase, up to £4.8m, despite - or because of - this winter's 35% gas bill rise.
(Polly Toynbee, no wonder the rich vilify her)
Lance Armstrong getting back in the saddle (yawn), the biggest cycling bore since Miguel Indurain, a return to robotic riding.
Now if I were a genuine cynic, instead of an idealist in fear of drowning in a sea of hypocrisy, I might be thinking along these lines -
L. A., well advised, always managed to stay a step or two ahead of the dope testing technology. When it began to catch up, time to retire. New advances in test beating techniques, back into competition. No, no, perish the thought!
I wonder what Dr. Ferrari's doing these days.
Now if I were a genuine cynic, instead of an idealist in fear of drowning in a sea of hypocrisy, I might be thinking along these lines -
L. A., well advised, always managed to stay a step or two ahead of the dope testing technology. When it began to catch up, time to retire. New advances in test beating techniques, back into competition. No, no, perish the thought!
I wonder what Dr. Ferrari's doing these days.
Ruth "Flogger" Kelly to resign from government to spend more time with her family. Let's see - she married in 1996 and has four children. It took some time to realise that her family needed her. Didn't I hear that she was due for the push?
Now, I wonder, who will be the Pope's representative in Her Majesty's Government?
Now, I wonder, who will be the Pope's representative in Her Majesty's Government?
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
I forgot to comment at the time on the passing of former Detective Sergeant Challenor of the Met. who slipped off the hook three weeks ago. The Challenor case was a big deal back in the sixties; that and the Sheffield Rhino Whips case - heady days!
Challenor had a proud career in the CID, blithely fitting up anyone he didn't like. He was, for some reason, particularly vindictive towards people with disabilities and people of a Mediterranean appearance. Possibly this was connected to his wartime experience in Italy as a POW.
Challenor slipped up when, at a political demonstration, he nicked one Donald Rooum, a peace activist, along with some others. He charged them with possession of offensive weapons, to wit, carrying bricks about their persons. Rooum refused to roll over, did not cooperate, i.e., avoided all contact with the magically manifested brick, and so was able eventually to prove his innocence. In the course of doing so he exposed Challenor as a bent copper, more than that, a nutter out of control.
None of which fazed the judge, who found Rooum not guilty but refused his application for damages. He also found some other poor joker guilty on the same discredited evidence from the same discredited copper. The Met. of course was not interested in delving into Challenor's murky past; too much perversion of the course of justice, too many compromised coppers.
But the genie was out of the bottle and some sort of action had to be taken. Challenor was declared to be a bad boy, but a nut case (true), therefore unfit to stand trial for his many crimes. He was committed to a mental institution, and after a few weeks, quietly released, later to obtain a job in the legal system (no kidding!). We may assume that he received a full pension for his contribution to the maintenance of law and order. After all he was never found guilty of any offence.
Addendum: after writing the above I took a look at wikipedia to see if there was anything on the Challenor case there. I found the linked article. Reading it I learn that I was too dismissive of the Metropolitan Force's response to the affair. Though Challenor got away with his crimes three other tecs were jailed.
I also learn that "doing a Challenor" became police parlance for retiring on grounds of illness to avoid investigation. If memory serves there was a lot of that about at the time of Operation Countryman and during the Stephen Lawrence investigation.
Wikipedia also has an article on Donald Rooum.
Challenor had a proud career in the CID, blithely fitting up anyone he didn't like. He was, for some reason, particularly vindictive towards people with disabilities and people of a Mediterranean appearance. Possibly this was connected to his wartime experience in Italy as a POW.
Challenor slipped up when, at a political demonstration, he nicked one Donald Rooum, a peace activist, along with some others. He charged them with possession of offensive weapons, to wit, carrying bricks about their persons. Rooum refused to roll over, did not cooperate, i.e., avoided all contact with the magically manifested brick, and so was able eventually to prove his innocence. In the course of doing so he exposed Challenor as a bent copper, more than that, a nutter out of control.
None of which fazed the judge, who found Rooum not guilty but refused his application for damages. He also found some other poor joker guilty on the same discredited evidence from the same discredited copper. The Met. of course was not interested in delving into Challenor's murky past; too much perversion of the course of justice, too many compromised coppers.
But the genie was out of the bottle and some sort of action had to be taken. Challenor was declared to be a bad boy, but a nut case (true), therefore unfit to stand trial for his many crimes. He was committed to a mental institution, and after a few weeks, quietly released, later to obtain a job in the legal system (no kidding!). We may assume that he received a full pension for his contribution to the maintenance of law and order. After all he was never found guilty of any offence.
Addendum: after writing the above I took a look at wikipedia to see if there was anything on the Challenor case there. I found the linked article. Reading it I learn that I was too dismissive of the Metropolitan Force's response to the affair. Though Challenor got away with his crimes three other tecs were jailed.
I also learn that "doing a Challenor" became police parlance for retiring on grounds of illness to avoid investigation. If memory serves there was a lot of that about at the time of Operation Countryman and during the Stephen Lawrence investigation.
Wikipedia also has an article on Donald Rooum.
Monday, September 22, 2008
The inquest into the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes kicks off today. I predict that -
a) the coroner will recommend to the jury that they return an open verdict
b) if the jury returns a verdict of unlawful killing the CPS will declare that it's not in the public interest to prosecute the killers
c) we'll hear a lot about coppers who have been traumatised by the incident and deserve our sympathy and a big lump of public money.
a) the coroner will recommend to the jury that they return an open verdict
b) if the jury returns a verdict of unlawful killing the CPS will declare that it's not in the public interest to prosecute the killers
c) we'll hear a lot about coppers who have been traumatised by the incident and deserve our sympathy and a big lump of public money.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
"The Palestinian Center For Human Rights (PCHR) published its weekly report on the Israeli violations in the occupied Palestinian areas in the period between 11 - 17 Sep. 2008. During the reported period, Israeli soldiers carried out 47 invasions, killed one Palestinian child, wounded 22 civilians -- including four children -- and kidnapped 39 civilians including five children." And Hillary Clinton is busy demonstrating against threats to Israel. The US press has not reported the daily threats against Lebanon from Israeli leaders. Also, there is a funny game that US press plays: Israel would make threats against some Arab country. And then somebody in that Arab country would say: IF Israel attacked us, we will fight back against Israel. It is then that the US press takes notice and then headlines: the Arabs are threatening Israel. The Arabs are threatening Israel.
(Angry Arab)
"Like scores of evangelists and hypocrites and moralists who spew and praise family values and pretend to be holier than thou and are then regularly caught cheating or found to be perverts, these Bush hypocrites who spewed for years the glory of unfettered Wild West laissez-faire jungle capitalism allowed the biggest debt bubble ever to fester without any control, and have caused the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.(Nouriel Roubini)
"They are are now forced to perform the biggest government intervention and nationalisations in the recent history of humanity, all for the benefit of the rich and the well connected. So Comrades Bush and Paulson and Bernanke will rightly pass to the history books as a troika of Bolsheviks who turned the USA into the USSRA."
I know I should object to the Bushwackers being called socialists, but, as it is probably the epithet that would most offend them, I'll let it ride.
"What could be better than robbing the ones who rob us and distributing the money among the groups which are denouncing this situation and building alternatives?" he asked.
What indeed?
Other banks said they would have no trouble writing off the lost money.
We know that. They've plenty of experience writing off the massive debts of defaulting governments and corporations.
Still, fair play to Enric Durán, and same again when you're ready.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
When I read on the BBC website that Celtic supporters were complaining about a Rangers song which included the words "The Famine is over, why don't you go home?" I thought they were overreacting. But it seems that the BBC and others are being a little coy about this song. Their reports are written in a way that suggests that the words quoted above are the cause of complaint, but not so. Here's a report that gives a better flavour of what is sung -
" ... a song which accuses Irish Catholics of ‘fondling their children’, of being Nazi sympathizers, which mocks the Great Famine and which ends in Rangers’ very own version of ‘Send the Buggers back’."
So not very accurate reporting by the BBC website, the Guardian and others.
Celtic supporters often complain of a media bias against them and their club. Is that the case here? Or are the media afraid to expose their public to the full strength of Orange bigotry in the West of Scotland?
Only a game!
" ... a song which accuses Irish Catholics of ‘fondling their children’, of being Nazi sympathizers, which mocks the Great Famine and which ends in Rangers’ very own version of ‘Send the Buggers back’."
So not very accurate reporting by the BBC website, the Guardian and others.
Celtic supporters often complain of a media bias against them and their club. Is that the case here? Or are the media afraid to expose their public to the full strength of Orange bigotry in the West of Scotland?
Only a game!
Listening to Radio 4 this morning I heard one Sir Howard Davies pontificating, for a tidy fee no doubt, on the current economic situation. He informed that we could be in for another Great Depression "if governments don't get it right".
So now the moneygrubbers have cleaned up someone else will be called on to sort out the mess and backfill the mysterious "black holes". I thought the philosophy was to leave the market to find its own level. Don't tell me that that was all cobblers, that we were being conned by the sainted Milton and his Chicago Boys; that old Sir Alf Sherman was full of shit.
"Governments must intervene" is the new slogan, and the taxpayer takes on the role of White Knight.
Here's a excerpt from Sir Howard's CV on wikipedia -
So the great and good Sir Howard appears to have been part of the problem before he became a consultant on solutions. It reads like he was the creator of the financial regulator that doesn't regulate. He was at the table with all the decision-makers from 1987 to 2003 as the gravy train gathered speed and hurtled towards the buffers.
Surely a peerage is in the offing.
So now the moneygrubbers have cleaned up someone else will be called on to sort out the mess and backfill the mysterious "black holes". I thought the philosophy was to leave the market to find its own level. Don't tell me that that was all cobblers, that we were being conned by the sainted Milton and his Chicago Boys; that old Sir Alf Sherman was full of shit.
"Governments must intervene" is the new slogan, and the taxpayer takes on the role of White Knight.
Here's a excerpt from Sir Howard's CV on wikipedia -
His notable appointments have included Executive Chairman of the Financial Services Authority from 1997-2003. he was the first Chairman of the FSA, the single financial regulator for the UK financial sector. He constructed it from nine previously separate bodies. He was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England from 1995 to 1997, until the incoming Labour governemnt asked him to create the new regulator. Prior to this, he served for three years as Director General of the Confederation of British Industry. From 1987 to 1992 he was Controller of the Audit Commission. He was also a non-executive director of GKN between 1989-1995, and a member of the International Advisory Board of Natwest bank from 1991-95.
So the great and good Sir Howard appears to have been part of the problem before he became a consultant on solutions. It reads like he was the creator of the financial regulator that doesn't regulate. He was at the table with all the decision-makers from 1987 to 2003 as the gravy train gathered speed and hurtled towards the buffers.
Surely a peerage is in the offing.
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