Thanks for the help with Opera. I'd have never figured that out, since I don't normally have the menu bar showing & the "Tools" menu doesn't show in the drop-down menu. For the most part, I really like Opera, but there are a few things that just seem harder than they need to be.
Now if I could just figure out why I can't sign into YouTube.
...The police have advised him (Clegg) to stop cycling for fear of his personal safety; excrement has been pushed through his letter box.- Rawnsley, The Groan, today
Well, that's cheered me up a bit.
Mind you, it was Yawnsley who predicted (before the last election) that the Tory's chances of winning a second term '...depend on how well they perform in government...'.
Gee, Andy...you think? No wonder Yawnsley gets the big money.
Much as I like that, Montana, Louis Prima singing I'm the king of the swingers, a jungle vip is my favourite Prima, although 'Just A Gigolo' runs it a close second (I'd post the link, but I think your spambot eats posts with more than one link).
BTW, why don't you just enable embedding? No more clicking on youtube links--just the video right here on the page.
Actually might have a few hours to spend on here! Most of the minor alterations have been done, Xmas decorations mostly up (tree coming next week) and I'm going out for Sunday lunch.
Also the sun is shining and the snow has been washed away by yesterday's rain!
Keep those tunes coming especially the jazz and blues!
Flipping 'eke, The Graun had deleted RedMiner's post on Waddya about the disability hate crime network complaining to the EHRC about IDS' vilification of disabled people as 'benefit scroungers'.
Oh dear, a bit of a lost night on Friday .... had fun though and although still feeling a bit gloomy... the snow has gone and the temperature has risen above freezing for the first time in a week.
Jack... ta for the laff re: Clugg....
And Montana - the Cadbury's cocoa ad was peculiarly cheery to see when I logged on to UT ;)
Anne: We did the tree last week - won considerable approval from some mates who came back to ours on Friday night/Sat morning!
Got to go to work today but think the fresh air and exercise will be good for me.... it's just the thought of it at the moment!
Just thought I'd put this here-just in case...from Redminer
"Why has my post referring to the FACT that the Disability Hate Crime Network, an organisation of national standing, and which won an award from RADAR last week (presented by Ian Duncan Smith no less) has reported IDS to the EHRC for his comments in the Sun blaming the sick and disabled for the economic crisis and announcing, wrongly, that people can claim IB long term simply by self-certifying?
Is the Guardian now in the business of protecting the Tories from their own incitement and hate speech?
Is WADDYA answerable to Central Office?
The concept of the Guardian as a progressive/liberal newspaper is rapidly becoming a joke."
..long time admirer of Redminer...one slight quibble though...
"...BECOMING a joke"...if it's 'becoming' a joke...then it's the world's longest joke...at least 150 years in the telling...and there's no point waiting for the punch line...you'll have either heard it before or can guess anyway...I'll give you a clue...some fuckin chinless epicene public school 'progressive' walks into a bar and tells you:
"Yes times are hard..but we're all in it together and the only reason you're sniping is because you're a clapped-out, political dinosaur with a chip on your shoulder...so just accept that no-account, privileged, middle-class non-entities are the rightful keepers of the liberal flame and your part is to cheer them on and tell them how caring, witty, enlightened and clever they are"
...is anyone actually surprised at this (the Guardian's submersion in the cesspool of neoliberalism)?
Who can forget that prize chump and lickspittle Seaton coming below the line on a James Purnell piece to bleat about how Purnell must be respected etc etc and how we musn't say nasty, hurtful things. Christ.
Here's what I wrote 2 years ago, when I stopped buying The Guardian:
So when people say to me, “why get so upset? It’s just another crap newspaper”, I reply, “yes, but it used to be so much more than that.”
Looking at the Guardian now is like discovering that a clever, funny, kind and beautiful girl you once loved has become a raddled crack whore.
The newspaper that Marx and Engels read devoutly now deems 6 People Poisoned by Blowfish Testicles worthy of its front page.
A newspaper that once felt a responsibility to explain itself to its readers now treats its readers like importunate scum, ingrates who have the effrontery to ask questions.
Britain doesn't cut a pretty figure in the cables. On the rare occasions when US policies – on cluster bomb storage, on rendition flights through UK territory – meet challenges from the UK, British politicians are assumed to be thinking about voters rather than principles. Monotonously, Ambassador Louis Susman in London writes off Gordon Brown's criticisms of Washington policies as posturing "driven by domestic politics".
And the devastating pages about the "special relationship", published in yesterday's Guardian, reveal a trembling British obsequiousness which the Americans find absurd, even embarrassing. Only last year Richard LeBaron, deputy chief of mission in London, said that the British attitude "would often be humorous, if it were not so corrosive". The Tory cringe, as party leaders prepared to take power, is shown to be as low as the Labour cringe when Tony Blair rushed to offer Britain as a so-called "equal partner" in invading Iraq. William Hague, as shadow foreign secretary, assured the embassy in confidence he considered the US his "other country" and promised "a pro-American regime".
This degree of toadying clearly poses problems for the Americans. The dispatches repeat genuine appreciation of Britain's unique loyalty as an ally. But LeBaron was typically shrewd to call this behaviour "corrosive".
Since I know that RedMiner at least sometimes reads this site, I would like to suggest that he thinks about putting the deleted post here, if he saved it.
This would not involve any commitment to post here regularly.
He could just post it anonymously.
[Sorry about my absence for a few days, I will get Atomgirl to send Montana a sick note]
PS Nice to see people demonstrating about the corporate tax-fiddling mates of Dave1.
From Vodafone to TopShop and the odious Philip Green, connoisseur of government cuts, this one could run and run.
PPS Why do excessively rich old men like Green and the American Trumper the Clown have such ridiculous haircuts?
After all, they could afford to have their mops chopped professionally, rather than appear as if their gardeners do it in the evenings when drunk.
PPS Atomgirl has done her normal Winterval routine and hacked a clump out of the hair at the back of my head, so I am probably on heightened hair alert at the moment.
Not sure what you are talking about specifically but I am assuming you are having a smile at some of the waddya shenanigans.
But it isn't something you should feel apologetic about. It is just human nature that, after trying to engage properly and politely with someone, if they still insist on being completely offensive and a numpty for no reason, that you would want to laugh at it and point out just how daft it is.
Compassion, after all, isn't about "being nice" to people and pandering to them when they are behaving like eejits. That just reinforces their delusions and ultimately ends up hurting them more because reality doesn't actually match up to what they believe, and it will jump up and hit them on the nose in a bad way if they keep on deluding themselves.
And laughing at someone for being daft can be a very compassionate thing to do if there is the remotest possibility that it might jolt them out of their daftness and make them realise the damage they are doing to themselves (and sometimes other people).
Here endeth the lesson - well it is Sunday after all! :o)
Oh, it was the Mead thing. The quote he was using comes from his hero Pinker. I think it suggests something about breadth of reading....
It's got him a bit pink under the collar, I think. He's starting to get a bit frothy at the mouth. :-)
FWIW, though, I actually really like Bracken (I know it's not a popular view, but he reminds me of so many blokes I've known and loved to fight with over the years), so it's a fond bit of gloating I'm indulging in here.
Oh but yeah, the other one's just a source of bemusement, BB. I'm actually really pretty much never rude to him, I don't think - I'm probably much more careful not to be rude to him than I am with other posters. so I alternate between amusement and 'wtf', most of the time when dealing with him.
BB - "Cadbury - our latest trans-national tax-dodgers" SNAP! My very first thought!
Timboktu--thanks for that CC, seems to be runnng faster:)
Philippa --Hutton! The quality of the comments just shows that there is no paucity in UK of intelligence, bloody common sense, decency, analytical ability, knowledge, SO fuck him and his "talent gap". He is part of the problem not part of the solution, the wanker. Even FedEx was more on the ball than him... Fightingbull is chieftroll today, but really not worth the ammo imo.
Golem's link to the IMF paper is well worth a look. Bottom of page9 and page10 . For an idea.
Believe it or not, I like Bracken as well. I see him more as a kind of intellectual troll, a "light the blue touch paper and step back" kind of guy who is mostly having a bit of fun, as opposed to someone who is a seriously vicious right-wing troll. (Although he can say some truly vicious horrible things and I will be the first to give him a bollocking when he does - he oversteps the mark into the spiteful ad hom far to easily and seamlessly at times).
When you think of the altruistic foundations of the Cadbury empire it makes me want to puke to see what Kraft are up to now. Although it doesn't bloody surprise me. John Cadbury must be rolling in his grave... :(
dave - aye, should perhaps have stressed that article was 'interesting' rather than 'good', and that it is the thread that makes it...
but have a bit of a hangover so such nuances were too much for me earlier.
first deaths from cold being reported here. three 'SDFs' (sans domicile fixe). it is bitter - local charities going round trying to round up custom for shelters...
MsChin -- I too thought of parking RedMiner's post, which I did for bartelbe on Hutton, but I thought --"No, they can't, can they?" That really is censorship of the News.
Dave and MsChin, the thing I find most bemusing about the removal of RM's post is the way people are trying to justify it as understandable. The claims that it's not censorship, that it must be something else, it couldn't possibly be political interest underpinning the removal of the post... it's odd.
Are people unfamiliar with the idea of state censorship? Do they think that it doesn't happen in nice countries like Britain?
I wondered if it was because there is some legal aspect to it that the Graun don't want to become embroiled in. But even that doesn't make any sense - it certainly didn't stop them reporting the Nick Griffin EHRC commission shenanigans.
So yes - perhaps it is just plain old censorship. Which is bloody disgusting.
If this was the first time I'd seen stuff simply getting removed because it was critical of a member of the government, I might think that it was something explicable. But it isn't. I've seen several things disappear off various internet sites - facebook, twitter, etc.
I guess on the Guardian, abuse of the report feature might explain some of it. But quite whose life is small enough to be wandering around the site reporting minor copyright infringements etc all over the place? It's just daft. Gegen's disappearing post yesterday is another example. There might be some logical explanation, just about, but it's clear that the intention to censor is there.
I hardly ever go to The Guardian now, let alone Dribbly, so I do not know what is happening there.
However, it may be less to do with people not believing that CiF could be involved with blatant censorship - after all, plenty of us have highlighted it over the years - and more to do with some people being desperate to collude in the protection of CiF against any criticism.
They are so addicted to posting their addled, half-arsed thoughts on what they have convinced each other is the ne plus ultra site on the internet that they cannot bear to think that:
a. It might be a long way short of adequate, quite apart from perfect.
b. Others might see it for the sham it is and then their own credibility would take a nosedive along with the reputation of CiF.
c. They cannot bring themselves to imagine that their desperation to belong to something, anything which will have them may have led them into becoming the whores and pimps who give The Guardian as many free rides a day as it likes.
I could be wrong, of course, as I have not even bothered to look.
The problem is, I have seen it so many times before over there, I doubt that I am.
BB I like Peter too. Behind the aggressive and sometimes vindictive bullshit there is a very sensitive and sometimes brilliant human being. He has hang-ups which are obvious to others, but then, evolving past those are what makes life so interesting!
Phil -- I never thought for a millisecond you were approving the Hutton article in any possible way ..
CIF really has gone proper daft at the moment, in much the way that many of us here predicted.
At first I was quite pissed off, then I was a bit sad, for like a few minutes, now, if I can be arsed to look at all, it's pretty much for the belly laughs.
The self-delusion, paranoia, and bizarre 'right on' circle-jerking is, quite honestly, fucking hilarious!!
I'm afraid I can't join in the Bracken relativisation. I don't mind his ad-homs (he can call me a deluded, mincing, limp-wristed nancy boy all he wants, it just shows him up as a homophobe with a nasty temper), but I do take exception to his bitey-style habit of misquoting, inventing and especially "extrapolating" in order to smear me.
If I say I'm against the NATO attack on Yugoslavia, that doesn't entitle you to wait a couple of days and then announce on another thread that I've come out as a fan of Milosevic, Bracken.
Any more than I can conclude, Bracken-style, from your attacks on East Germany that you prefer the regime it replaced, and so announce on another thread that you're a self-confessed admirer of the Nazis.
So why don't you and bitey just stop the sneaky, dishonest crap? Are you afraid you'll never win an honest argument?
Spike Relativisation indeed. Some people are very different in real life.
Monkeyfish once observed that some of us - not all, but many - seem to get caught up in the persona we project online - and that for some it can become a limitation, a trap even; the diminishing returns of merely fulfilling expectations we place on ourselves.
Bitey's always banging on about manners in discourse - as if that's the primary indication of civilisation - yet can he play feats of intellectual dishonesty that would put many people out of business in real life were they to try it on their associates.
I personally don't have a row with bracken, and don't follow the Dibley Mail, so have missed much of this bullshit lately, but I can see how you might readily apply the same to PB, from what you're saying.
I got into a spat recently with Fencewalker who took exception to me asking 'He who has had a long eventful life' to clarify something for me.For some reason i got modded and FW didn't even though i genuinely thought i wasn't breaking any rules.Anyways i asked the mods to explain their decision and i've actually got a reply-
Apparently someone reported me as being 'off topic' and because being 'off topic' is a breach of the community guidelines the mods were duty bound to delete my posts.-Not sure how i was 'off topic ' mind.Anyways if i'd reported FW for being 'off topic'as well then his posts would have been deleted too.But because neither myself nor anyone else reported FW his posts have been left standing-even though they were no more or less 'off topic' than mine.Well that's clear then!
@BW
Great John Lee Hooker track at the end of the last thread.
The Only Job Growth in the Last Year Has Been in Part-Time Jobs Paying $20,000 pa.
The former director of the Office of Management and Budget under Ronald Reagan - David Stockman - just gave some stunning statistics on unemployment.
Stockman told CNBC that two-thirds of the jobs which have been created in the last year - the jobs which everyone talks about each month - are only part-time jobs, averaging $20,000 per year.
Stockman pointed out that that type of salary is not enough to raise a family, let alone to allow the type of spending which would lead to a recovery. Stockman also said:
• "The job outlook as a trend is a lot worse than people think"
• Zero "breadwinner jobs" (full-time jobs paying enough to raise a family with) have been created in the last year
• For the first time ever, the government sector is shrinking: "the reason is that governments are broke... we are going to have to cut back government employment."
Hi guys, on the Hutton thread, Fightingbull(shit)is all over the place. He would like all low paid public sector workers like cleaners to be on short term outsourced contracts so they cannot claim sickness nor pensions. A nasty individual all in all. It reminds me of a headline seen on the morning news last week about how someone is paying for right-wing trolls to comment on boards. I do wonder sometimes how these people have the time and resilience to take on all-comers in defence of the indefensible, maybe that is the reason?
The figures aren't so much 'cooked', but rather marinated, sautéd, garnished with Himalayan alfalfa, and served up on a bed of saffron infused cous cous.
Was ever thus though, but it does seem that there are less and less people prepared to call bullshit nowadays, although, in fairness, with all these articles about 'Cameron the gent', 'Slankies' and 'The cuts impact on my kids dressage classes' to write, one does have to prioritise I suppose....
boy, i must be bored. just opened this month's copy of 'Tax Advisor' (my one visible benefit from paying the institute subs every year...)
cover story - the Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility.
ready?
In September 2009 the UK and Liechtenstein governments signd several agreements aimed at increasing tax transparency
...gooood. tell me more...
They signed a joint declaration, a tax information exchange agreement and a memorandum and (sic) understanding, introducing a five-year tax assistance and compliance programme and a five-year tax disclosure facility in the UK
...intriguing. please elaborate...
Very briefly, the programme requires Liechtenstein financial intermediaries (LFIs) to review their clients to identify those who may have tax liabilities in the UK and seek that those clients demonstrate UK tax compliance
...very sensible. any catches?
In return HMRC in the UK would provide a tax disclosure facility allowing those individuals wih irregularities to disclose them and settle with HMRC on beneficial terms
hmmm. how 'beneficial'?
The tax disclosure campaing in the UK (the LDF) commenced on 1 September 2009. The LDF has developed and evolved from its introduction and continues to do so. This is its strength
...I am starting to get suspicious, now. how 'beneficial'?
Its key terms are: - A 10% fixed penalty, no penalty where there is innocent error. - Pay tax and interest back to 6 April 1999 (not the 20 years that the HMRC can normally go back for where tax has not been paid as a result of a deliberate wrongdoing (if the additional tax is as a result of innocent error or carelessness the number of years might be limited to four or six years)) - There is a guarantee of no prosecution providing there is no underlying criminal activity under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (tax evasion excepted in the case*) -There is scope to apply a composite rate of 40% to cover all duties for the years up until 5 April 2009**
*badly worded, but means that tax evasion is not in this case considered to be 'criminal'.
**meaning that if there are several types of liability (IT, CT, s419, IHT) the tax due could be well under what would otherwise be due. or you can apply the 'regular' rate if that would be lower than 40%. your choice.
Also... one thing that has been particularly helpful is the opportunity within the facility to approach HMRC on a no-names basis to explore whether a case is relevant to LDF or not
Also... as we go to press, we have seen the ground-breaking agreement between the Swiss and UK governments to intensify cooperation on tax. As part of this, one could see the introduction of a Swiss Disclosure Facility (SDF), particularly given the success of the LDF
Well then. Best check my evasively held off-shore accounts to see if I can clean my record without barely feeling it.
the basic rule re tax evasion - HMRC can go back 20 years to assess the tax due at the full rate in force at the time, and charge a 100% penalty on top.
the LDF rule - ten years (poss less) on the assessment, at a possibly lower rate than otherwise due, and a 10% penalty.
you'd be dumb not to, eh?
(italicised sections are quotes from article "is this the way to Liechtenstein?" by Gary Ashford in the November 2010 ediution of Tax Advisor, (c) CIOT)
IanG -- same question yesterday at craigmurray. Unless you actually track a shill back to its office computer (which was done by GMWatch to a PR Company office on a Monsanto thread), there's no way of telling with the high-quality opponent.
A group of us wrangled for months with a couple of them on such subjects, but could never get further than VERY strong suspicion!
@DFF, thanks for the info. That is one reason (like AB said earlier here) I do not bother anymore with CiF. However, I do admire PCC and others who fight long and hard but I never see anyone actually be persuaded by reasonable arguments. So where do we go from here? Are these discussions just lightening conductors that sink our fury to earth so that we don't get on the streets?
On another topic there is a FB page to get support to stop Thatch getting a sate send off. I support that of course but again I see no way having thousands of followers will make the slightest difference.
so you can read what I posted and what others from UT posted in response - PhillipaB, MsChin, Fencewalker, MrsBootstraps, scherfig, among others. Then when you've read the posts you can show here where I'm defending child sexual abuse.
And just to help you on your way here's my first post of the subject to some chump by the name of Auric, but it just as easily applies to you:
Auric:
Your prejudice against feminism comes through very clearly in your post, although there's no evidence whatever that either the 15 year old student or the 26 year old teacher were feminists. And even if they were why would that matter? But why let that bother you when you can get 8 recommendations so easily?
And if you are going to describe a loving relationship between two women of 15 and 26 years using the word for the most heinous sexual act known, paedophilia, how then do you differentiate it from the monster Steven Barker in the Baby P case who raped a two year old girl?
Unlike you Shallcross, Auric was sufficiently sensible to realise his mistake and backed away gracefully.
Was wondering how one could pull off a 'tough on tax avoidance, yet business friendly' position, with a 'we're all in this together' theme tune, without you know, actually doing anything!!
Job's a good 'un!!
Still, it's the thought that counts and all that....
Bitey's always banging on about manners in discourse - as if that's the primary indication of civilisation - yet can he play feats of intellectual dishonesty that would put many people out of business in real life were they to try it on their associates.
I'd really be interested in any examples you might have of what you call my intellectual dishonesty Bitterweed.
I quite like the intellectual bit, I don't often get called that, but dishonest?
"It reminds me of a headline seen on the morning news last week about how someone is paying for right-wing trolls to comment on boards. I do wonder sometimes how these people have the time and resilience to take on all-comers in defence of the indefensible, maybe that is the reason?"
I strongly believe that this is going on and has for some considerable time. Many of the trolls are spouting the same stuff off-pat, over and over again, my suspicion is that this is a well-organised operation.
As for censorship on CiF re: RedMiner and others.... it has been going on so systematically since CiF started, I can only conclude that Comment was never meant to be entirely 'free' - ever.
james - what is most troubling to me is the almost smugly approving tone of the article - after setting out the terms (above - which are of most interest to the wider audience), there was just so much 'oh, this is wonderful, see how many of your clients could benefit!' that i felt a bit ill.
it's basically saying that readers - members of the CIOT who have to abide by a code of ethics that requires you to stop acting for clients who are evading tax and do not 'fess up - have clients who have been, erm, evading tax and not fessing up. how exactly that sits with the prof standards, i don't know...
I love Louis Prima. The Jungle Book is probably a big factor in that. Here he is with Keely.
As for embedding videos in comments, I don't think Blogger lets you do that (but I'll look in a bit). We tried a 3rd party comment function on UT2 awhile back that did let people embed videos & had a lot of other functions that Blogger's comments doesn't have, but we found that the videos slowed the page loading time considerably.
@LaRit & BB:
I've had a poster of that Cadbury ad on my kitchen wall for years. Odd to find it online. Kraft briefly owned a candy-making factory here in Cowpat Junction. They were such a shit company to work for that my union-hating, right-wing pinhead industrial engineer brother, who took a job with them just after they took the place over, quit after only a month, because he thought they were too hard on their employees!
@Tim:
Thanks for the CCleaner. It never occurred to me that there would be such a thing out there. I do sometimes use Chrome, so it's nice to have something that will take care of them both at the same time.
General comment:
I'm with Spike on Bracken. I don't get the "I actually kind of like the guy" business, I really don't. Calling him a jizzbucket is an insult to buckets full of jizz. Nothing redeeming about him, whatsoever.
Have been dossing about and lounging in the bath all afternoon whilst listening to R4. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but am wondering whether Auntie Beeb is either, trying to tell us something or preparing us for an unpleasant fate.
Started off with a production of I Claudius, which was about duplicity, violence and the poisoning and assassination of almost his entire family.
followed by a discussion of Sara Halls dystopian novel The Carhullan Army - very gloomy, no happy ending.
Then we got an indepth dissection about Stevie Smith's poem Not Waving But Drowning. Great poem btw, but not cheerful and tends to encourage sombre introspection in me. See poem below.
The news headlined, a (possible) Russian spy employed by a LibDem MP, death by shark attack and the parlous state of the EU economy.
Now file on 4 is looking at how vast quantities of EU cash have ended up in the hands of the Sicilian Mafia.
All good stuff but no breaks from the melancholy tone. Think its either listening to Leonard Cohen or slitting my wrists...
Stevie Smith - Not Waving But Drowning
Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking And now he's dead It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always (Still the dead one lay moaning) I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning.
Montana, I visit lots of music blogs and 8 out of 10 of them are blogspot blogs; they all feature embedded youtube vids.
I'm not familiar with blogspot's internal workings but I suspect it's much like wordpress: a simple matter of ticking the 'allow embedding' option in the dashboard or control panel or whatever they call it.
I know that in wordpress, it isn't on by default--you have to 'allow' it but it's simple as hell. Well worth doing, I think.
...and just to inspire you, here's idiot-savant Chet Baker at his breezy, insouciant 23 year-old best. Like a quick blast of sunshine...Chet Baker Quartet - Band Aid (1953)
Back from weekend in Cardiff - fantastic time - gorgeous drive back today in sunshine mostly via scenic routes. (To find a dog covered in fox poo, but not all can be perfect.)
Waved at Anne and Leni en passant.
So PayPal has blocked WikiLeaks too and now Assange's lawyers are being stalked by the security security services. Marvellous.
Democracy and free speech (and freedom of the press) really are just shams, aren't they.
Interesting post about the growth of p/t employment in the States.The same applies over year with the rise on p/t jobs disguising the extent to which f/t employment has declined over the last year or so..
If memory serves me correctly there are currently around one million people in this country working p/t who want a f/t job.Which bodes ill for the unemployed as those in p/t jobs may be at the head of the queue when/if demand for f/t workers starts rising again.Plus some economists predict we may be headed for a period of 'jobless growth' where any growth is fuelled by incresed productivity from those currenly in-work and not by extra workers.
Montana, as near as I can tell, having embedded vids doesn't really affect the page load speed. What really does slow it down, though, is having too many posts per page (5 is considered the optimal max).
But check out THIS (blogspot) BLOG and you'll see what I mean about embedding and page-load speed.
Sheff, I've got Larkin's collected jazz writings All What Jazz. He's great on what he loves (US jazz circa 1910-1939) but he was rubbish on what he didn't get (Charlie Parker, Dizzy, Miles Davis etc). A deeply flawed man (just like the rest of us--men, I mean) but a great poet.
You don't know if I'm into poetry? It is to laugh, my dear...they published one of my poems in the G2 section a few weeks ago and five of mine appear in The Guardian Poster Poets Anthology 2008-2009...into poetry, forsooth..
Paul-- At least the US Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics do give numbers for people doing P/T work who want F/T, which is part of the U6 Unemployment figure of 17%, as opposed to U3 which is the 'headline' one at 9.8%.
In France you can remain on the Unemployed Register even while working up to 68hrs a month.
Bloody statistics indeed, but the U6 is useful in arguments...
I'd like to know where the hell I have to move to to get a part-time job that pays $20k/year. I'm guessing that it's a place where the cost of living is a helluva lot higher than it is in Cowpat Jct. I'd be a lot more comfortable if I made $20k/year.
@Jack:
Hmm. That page took nearly 6 minutes to load for me (this one usually takes a few seconds). The videos are embedded in the post, not the comments. I can, and have in the past, embed videos there. It's embedding them in the comments that can't be done with Blogger.
...especially as it raises the all-too-pertinent question of what the fuck are Labour up to..not that I care..but I think we should be told...
"Labour’s response to all this has been to spend four months fucking around with a leadership contest, and now, apparently, we are going to spend more months fucking around with a policy review. In a big hyped speech Miliband announced ’22 policy inquiries’ and ‘the formation of a series of working groups, chaired by shadow cabinet ministers, intended to lay the ground for a new policy programme to take Labour into the next general election.’ Sorry, Ed, but do we really have time for all this shit? Have we really earned the luxury of the blank page?"
Monkeyfish, I don't know if you saw the original but in a piece posted on Counterpunch, Alexander Cockburn (son of one of my teenage heroes, Claud Cockburn, great muck-raking journo and author of Beat The Devil, which became a fine John Houston/Bogart film) recalls meeting Ed when the future Labour leader was working as an intern at the Nation magazine in New York. It was the late 1980s or early 1990s.
"Round the corner from the Nation when it was on Fifth and 13th St in Manhattan was Zinno's restaurant," writes Cockburn, "and amid a pleasant lunch with Jo An Wypijewski [one of the leftist weekly's editors], my own intern Richie McKerrow and Eddie, I asked the future leader what I asked all interns as a matter of form, 'Eddie, is your hate pure?'"
Cockburn explains that as a young journalist he had been asked this question by the late Jim Goode, editor of Penthouse. "Goode, tall and cadaverous, was gay, clad in black leather as he crouched on the floor of his office, gazing morosely at hundreds of photos of bare-breasted women. As I entered with some screed about corporate and political evil, he snarled, 'Alex, is your hate pure?'... 'Yes, Jim, my hate is pure.'"
It was, Cockburn writes, a good way of judging interns. The feisty ones would respond excitedly: "Yes, my hate is pure."
So Cockburn put the question to young Ed. "He gaped at me in shock like Gussie Fink-Nottle watching one of his newts vanish down the plug hole in his bath. "I… I… don't hate anyone, Alex," he stammered.
Cockburn concludes: "It's all you need to know. English capitalism will be safe in his hands, assuming he ever grasps the levers of what passes for power in 10 Downing Street. It is very hard to imagine him as prime minister. He's forever Fink-Nottle to me."
what labour are doing in the UK is no different from the left in Italy....who IMO are far far worse.........is it possible that haven't even attempted to capitalise one iota on the glaring failures of the berlusconi government, i mean even a three year old could win an election on the social economic and foreign policy failures of berlusco not even mentioning his tendancy to screw underage girls, take advantage of prostitutes and have cocaine floating around.
i think that there is a conspiracy.........said spam aunty......
We need an opposition now - the minutiae of policy can come later. The Labour party should be in there now speaking from a position of long held leftist views about society, employment, wages etc.
Sheff, as the spambot ate my last comment, I'll repeat myself: I was just teasing you. I'm not a 'poet', I just enjoy writing verse. There's some good stuff in that Anthology, though.
leni yes true but i really don't think it's going to happen...not from the "traditional" opposition parties because they have been following the politics of the right for years,just with a bit of icing to make them look different, what's needed is a movement that snubs the existing political structure and that comes out against the monetarist policies of the last 3 and a half decades. the real challenge won't ever come from the labour party that there is now
Cockburn concludes: "It's all you need to know. English capitalism will be safe in his hands, assuming he ever grasps the levers of what passes for power in 10 Downing Street. It is very hard to imagine him as prime minister. He's forever Fink-Nottle to me."
Well including James Ramsay MacDonald, when did any Labour leader exist other than to ensure English capitalism was safe?
I am pretty convinced that the sell-off of social housing in the Thatcher era was a piece of intricate social engineering. Home ownership as a be all and end all means that people become more self-centred.
If you are paying a mortgage, you are going to think twice about going on strike, missing a couple of payments, and risking your house being repossessed.
purple people one year ago today, as it happens, were in 500,000 in the center of rome asking for berlusconi to resign.........alas nothing as far as i can see has come from it......lack of a uniform ideological base, invaded by political parties trying to get support; as what happened today at their first convention the parties of the traditional left webcammed their ideas in.....alas it seems that the popolo viola have also sold out..... cos they didn't really know what to do after calling for the resignation of berlusconi...they believe that if berlusconi goes all will be better....alas they haven't realised that berlusconi is the effect of a political system that is corrupt to the core, berlusco isn't the cause---he's the effect
You can in wordpress. It should be fairly straight-forward to migrate this whole blog to a wordpress blog, though...just sayin'..
We did a trial run of a Wordpress blog awhile back, when we were having an even greater than usual number of technical issues here. I think it's probably very easy to migrate it, but I think most people didn't care much one way or the other and inertia ruled the day.
selling socialhousing is just part of a bigger plan to reduce and remove governmental influence in all things social such as health, education, social security etc, etc.....the less government involvement the more free markets and "real" capitalism is allowed to take off.......Friedman economics simples.........
Thought I would park this here, from the Bolton thread, as it is going to be zapped and instead I parked it on the bloody thread. Ah well... made myself look a tit again, but it is all in a good cause...
UnashamedLibertarian
Fuck off you imperialist cunt. It's called freedom of speech, and it shows what bastards the Yank establishment are once and for all.
It's about time the rest of the world put aside its differences and kicked the shit into the americans.
I am pretty convinced that the sell-off of social housing in the Thatcher era was a piece of intricate social engineering. Home ownership as a be all and end all means that people become more self-centred.
If you are paying a mortgage, you are going to think twice about going on strike, missing a couple of payments, and risking your house being repossessed.
Absolutely agree with you there.And for some employers someone say aged over 30 without a home of their own is seen as being somewhat lacking.
Also after getting home-ownership up to 70% in this country successive governments not only abolished mortgage interest relief for homeowners but also the interst payments for those mortgage holders who are unemployed.An extremely effective form of social control because employers and banks have in effect got people by the short'n'curlies.And government is more interested in pandering to them than to the ordinary working public.
Thaum - the article is a disgrace, and it has brought some of the True American Patriots out in full flush, which is kind of gut-wrenching.
Thank god we have friends like Montana, and others who we know IRL, to remind us that fortunately at least half the US population doesn't agree with those idiots.
And I still want to know if he wrote this for the Guardian - and if so, what sort of people is Alan Rusbridger consorting with these days? Couldn't he hang out with crack-dealing paedophile cannibals rather than coming down to the level of people like Bolton?
couldn't be arsed to waste my precious energy on bolton.....just felt that it needed to be said that whatever he writes is shit.......why does the graun give space to that psycho.....
Oh, Christ...not John 'Nutcase With A Dodgy 'Tache' Bolton? I can't bear to look...my blood pressure won't stand it.
I've got a better idea...
¡ Que piquanté, muchachos !... This one would make Fatty Arbuckle get up out of his grave and shake his not insubstantial booty... ¡ Vamos a bailar ! Teresa García Caturla - Liegó Teté
Bitey You've been shown clearly by a poster here as selectively (mis)-quoting him to suit an agenda in the last two days. This is a complaint levelled against you so often it could be construed as a character flaw. Or a witch-hunt if you're you, of course. As I say, I doubt if this is how you go about your business "in real life", so it seems odd to do it here.
"Is there any tenet of Buddhism that you wouldn't sacrifice for some cheap publicity MrsB?"
I'm not sure which tenet of buddhism you see being violated here?
Me neither Meerkatjie and I was hoping one of you Buddhism experts would advise whether condemning the entire population of a country of 300 million people as being worthy of having the "shit" kicked out of them, was something that contravened Buddhist beliefs.
You've been shown clearly by a poster here as selectively (mis)-quoting him to suit an agenda in the last two days. This is a complaint levelled against you so often it could be construed as a character flaw. Or a witch-hunt if you're you, of course. As I say, I doubt if this is how you go about your business "in real life", so it seems odd to do it here.
I think you're referring to the accusation made by Shallcross, but he's failed completely to respond with any evidence. If it isn't Shallcross please tell me who it is.
But if it is Shallcross it's not surprising coming from someone who's dedicated his life, or most of it to promoting a creed that most of the world has come to realise was a serious error, to say the very least, apart from Shallcross who continues to litter the pavements of one of the world's most beautiful cities with his masters' delusions.
What amazes me more than anything is that he, compared to me, really is intelligent, so why does he continue to live this world communism delusion?
"We need an opposition now - the minutiae of policy can come later."
I agree but I don't see Labour stepping up to the plate...reckon Ed doesn't know just how much he can condemn since he's probably got more of the same in stall for us anyway should he ever get the chance.
Jack Cade
I know what you mean...that's the political classes these days in a nutshell...one to one mapping onto Wodehouse buffoons...something to do with our 'classless society', no doubt...mind you, I'd still take Ed over Cameron...Dave's Spode with a semi-literate PR consultant
BTH
How can you seriously object to the "paedophile with a million air-miles" tag, given the interpretative contortions you apply daily to other people's posts?...judged on your own surreal and unbounded standards of 'evidence', you should have been sharing a cell with Ian Huntley five years ago...just drop it..you're making such a twat of yourself.
I recall, from a post of his on Friday night, that "winning" means me apologising to him for reporting him to the mods for abuse and writing to them to ask for his reinstatement.
In the series, "Our idols have feet of clay", I'm very disappointed by the Vicky Coren article.
I was also about to get angry with David Mitchell until I read his piece and discovered he's the victim of the usual sub-editor comprehension deficit. Shouldn't CiF get people who can read to write their headlines? Or perhaps I'm being unfair. Possibly the sub-eds aren't given time to read the articles they caption.
True, MF...Spink-Bottle is infinitely preferable to Spode...but, Jesus: this is the best Labour can manage? At a time that calls for...I dunno..Hereward The Wake or something...it's depressing...and here's some more depressing news:
For daily, or even hourly, updates on the life of Cheryl Cole, a British television talent-show judge and sometime pop singer who used to be married to a soccer star, there may be no better resource than the Web site of The Daily Mail.
Is the comely Ms. Cole headed to America to join the U.S. version of “The X Factor”? Is she scouting around for real estate in Los Angeles? Will a seven-year-old assault conviction deny her a U.S. visa? Mail Online is on the case.
Readers have noticed. According to the research firm comScore, more than 32 million people flock to the British newspaper’s site every month for the latest on Ms. Cole, as well as news of narrower interest.
Its growth curve has been remarkable: Created only two years ago, Mail Online now has the second-largest Web audience of any paper in the world, behind only Nytimes.com, the combined site of The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune. --NYT, today (full article HERE)
How can you seriously object to the "paedophile with a million air-miles" tag, given the interpretative contortions you apply daily to other people's posts?...judged on your own surreal and unbounded standards of 'evidence', you should have been sharing a cell with Ian Huntley five years ago...just drop it..you're making such a twat of yourself. 05 December, 2010 21:56
So once more monkeyfish you fail to come up with a single quote of mine that backs up your accusations, which really do sink to a low that I doubted even you could reach. And I'll save you the trouble looking as you won't find one.
Ian Huntley?
Do you think he would have quoted this on his profile?
‘The pleasures of my life here are simple – simple, inexpensive and democratic. A warm hill of Marmande tomatoes on a roadside vendors stall. A cold beer on a pavement café of the Café de France – Marie Therese inside making me a sandwich au Camembert. Munching the knob off a fresh babuette as I wander back from Sainte-Sabine. The farinaceous smell of the white dust raised by a breeze from the driveway. A cuckoo sounding in the perfectly silent woods beyond the meadow. The huge grey, cerise, pink orange and washed out blue of a sunset seen from my rear terrace. The drilling of the cicadas at noon – the soft dialling tone of the crickets as dusk slowly gathers. A good book, a hammock and a cold, beaded bottle of blanc sec. A rough red wine and steak frites. The cool, dark, shuttered silence of my bedroom – and as I go to sleep, the prospect that all this will be available to me again, unchanged, tomorrow.’
I really expected better from an intelligent man like you - and I assume you are a man - who seems more at home in a Murdoch rag like the Sun than a semi-quality blog like this.
And as for the Hitchcock - Psycho references, they're becoming a bit like those repetitive Xmas tv adverts.
Very boring.
Couldn't the intellectual heavyweights of The Untrusted come up with something a little more original?
I'm quite prepared to entertain an accusation that I'm psychologically flawed, but please, surely with the likes of Meerkatjie, or Pen....... you could come up with something better than Hollywood or Soham.
Thanks to whoever rescued my little post from spam central.
@jack cade
Let's just say that an awful lot of people would like Cheryl Cole to fall on them. The nation's sweetheart, they call her. At least the kind of people who get excited about The X Factor do.
Heheh. Good clip. I never realised Cthulhu was on the side of the angels.
Bitey!!! You did a one liner with music. It wasn't particularly good, but nice one! Honestly, I've stopped reading you because you go on about the same shit over and over again.
@Hel:
ReplyDeleteThanks for the help with Opera. I'd have never figured that out, since I don't normally have the menu bar showing & the "Tools" menu doesn't show in the drop-down menu. For the most part, I really like Opera, but there are a few things that just seem harder than they need to be.
Now if I could just figure out why I can't sign into YouTube.
Morning, campers...unless you're dead, this'll get you moving, no matter how damn cold it is...Benny Goodman & His Orchestra Ft. Gene Krupa-Sing, Sing, Sing
ReplyDelete...The police have advised him (Clegg) to stop cycling for fear of his personal safety; excrement has been pushed through his letter box. - Rawnsley, The Groan, today
ReplyDeleteWell, that's cheered me up a bit.
Mind you, it was Yawnsley who predicted (before the last election) that the Tory's chances of winning a second term '...depend on how well they perform in government...'.
Gee, Andy...you think? No wonder Yawnsley gets the big money.
This one's for Clegg...Mick Harvey - Out Of Time Man.
Brilliant as that is, it's even better when Louis sings it, Jack.
ReplyDeleteMuch as I like that, Montana, Louis Prima singing I'm the king of the swingers, a jungle vip is my favourite Prima, although 'Just A Gigolo' runs it a close second (I'd post the link, but I think your spambot eats posts with more than one link).
ReplyDeleteBTW, why don't you just enable embedding? No more clicking on youtube links--just the video right here on the page.
Morning all!
ReplyDeleteActually might have a few hours to spend on here! Most of the minor alterations have been done, Xmas decorations mostly up (tree coming next week) and I'm going out for Sunday lunch.
Also the sun is shining and the snow has been washed away by yesterday's rain!
Keep those tunes coming especially the jazz and blues!
Morning all.
ReplyDeleteBloody freezing here, although there is only about a foot of snow left.
Glad to hear you're settling in, Anne. Will be lovely to see you more often on here!
Flipping 'eke, The Graun had deleted RedMiner's post on Waddya about the disability hate crime network complaining to the EHRC about IDS' vilification of disabled people as 'benefit scroungers'.
ReplyDeleteThat's just appalling.
Morning all!
ReplyDeleteOh dear, a bit of a lost night on Friday .... had fun though and although still feeling a bit gloomy... the snow has gone and the temperature has risen above freezing for the first time in a week.
Jack... ta for the laff re: Clugg....
And Montana - the Cadbury's cocoa ad was peculiarly cheery to see when I logged on to UT ;)
Anne: We did the tree last week - won considerable approval from some mates who came back to ours on Friday night/Sat morning!
Got to go to work today but think the fresh air and exercise will be good for me.... it's just the thought of it at the moment!
Morning all
ReplyDeleteNice choice of pic, Montana. Cadbury - our latest trans-national tax-dodgers.
MsChin - that's bloody ridiculous. I read it quickly last night and there certainly wasn't anything offensive in it as far as I recall.
Annetan - lovely to hear you are going to be around more.
Excellent choonage, Mr Cade, btw.
Blues? You want blues? We got blues and very apt, too... Jimmy Witherspoon & T-Bone Walker - Money's Gettin' Cheaper
ReplyDeleteI can't afford to live
Guess I'll have to try
Undertakers gotta union
and it costs too much to die.
Times gettin' tougher than tough
Things gettin' rougher than rough
I make a lotta money,
I just keep spendin' the stuff.
...and another one for that scumbag Clegg Mary Coughlan - Double Cross
ReplyDelete..and the Clegg-specific hits keep coming, pop pickers...Iggy Pop - New Values
ReplyDeleteI'm lookin' for one new value
But nothin' comes my way.
In a lighter vein, Jake Thackray explains about his Grandad
ReplyDeleteJust thought I'd put this here-just in case...from Redminer
ReplyDelete"Why has my post referring to the FACT that the Disability Hate Crime Network, an organisation of national standing, and which won an award from RADAR last week (presented by Ian Duncan Smith no less) has reported IDS to the EHRC for his comments in the Sun blaming the sick and disabled for the economic crisis and announcing, wrongly, that people can claim IB long term simply by self-certifying?
Is the Guardian now in the business of protecting the Tories from their own incitement and hate speech?
Is WADDYA answerable to Central Office?
The concept of the Guardian as a progressive/liberal newspaper is rapidly becoming a joke."
..long time admirer of Redminer...one slight quibble though...
"...BECOMING a joke"...if it's 'becoming' a joke...then it's the world's longest joke...at least 150 years in the telling...and there's no point waiting for the punch line...you'll have either heard it before or can guess anyway...I'll give you a clue...some fuckin chinless epicene public school 'progressive' walks into a bar and tells you:
"Yes times are hard..but we're all in it together and the only reason you're sniping is because you're a clapped-out, political dinosaur with a chip on your shoulder...so just accept that no-account, privileged, middle-class non-entities are the rightful keepers of the liberal flame and your part is to cheer them on and tell them how caring, witty, enlightened and clever they are"
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletegrrr
ReplyDeleteI swear by CCleaner to clear out cookies and all sorts of crap. Hence it's name, it used to be known as CrapCleaner.
CCleaner
interesting piece up from will hutton.
ReplyDeleteoops
ReplyDeletehere
Cheers, MF, I wish I'd preserved RedMiner's original post over here :(
ReplyDeleteannouncing, wrongly, that people can claim IB long term simply by self-certifying?
ReplyDeleteIsn't that what Edd the Duck was claiming he'd done the other day on WDYWTTA?
...is anyone actually surprised at this (the Guardian's submersion in the cesspool of neoliberalism)?
ReplyDeleteWho can forget that prize chump and lickspittle Seaton coming below the line on a James Purnell piece to bleat about how Purnell must be respected etc etc and how we musn't say nasty, hurtful things. Christ.
Here's what I wrote 2 years ago, when I stopped buying The Guardian:
So when people say to me, “why get so upset? It’s just another crap newspaper”, I reply, “yes, but it used to be so much more than that.”
Looking at the Guardian now is like discovering that a clever, funny, kind and beautiful girl you once loved has become a raddled crack whore.
The newspaper that Marx and Engels read devoutly now deems 6 People Poisoned by Blowfish Testicles worthy of its front page.
A newspaper that once felt a responsibility to explain itself to its readers now treats its readers like importunate scum, ingrates who have the effrontery to ask questions.
...fuck 'em...here's something a bit more uplifting... Bill Landford & The Landfordaires-Run For A Long Time.
Moby sampled this, but this is better...straight whisky as opposed to some crap with a little pink umbrella and a handful of fruit.
I wish I could find out more about these guys but one just hits a stone wall. All we've got (as far as I can make out) is a name.
hideandseeker @4.47am on the Hutton thread:
ReplyDelete"Rein in the fat cats before the alley cats (that's us) decide enough is enough and rein them in regardless..."
Will have to listen later, Jack, as we are currently tuned in to reggae (at loud volume) ...
ReplyDeletemschin - i particularly like the greatronrafferty:
ReplyDelete"or, there's always the tax system..."
It's beneath me really to be as amused as I am. I should be bigger than this. I'm not.
ReplyDeleteG'day all
ReplyDeleteQuite an interesting piece from Neal Ascherson on the leaks and America's imperial retreat"
Britain doesn't cut a pretty figure in the cables. On the rare occasions when US policies – on cluster bomb storage, on rendition flights through UK territory – meet challenges from the UK, British politicians are assumed to be thinking about voters rather than principles. Monotonously, Ambassador Louis Susman in London writes off Gordon Brown's criticisms of Washington policies as posturing "driven by domestic politics".
And the devastating pages about the "special relationship", published in yesterday's Guardian, reveal a trembling British obsequiousness which the Americans find absurd, even embarrassing. Only last year Richard LeBaron, deputy chief of mission in London, said that the British attitude "would often be humorous, if it were not so corrosive". The Tory cringe, as party leaders prepared to take power, is shown to be as low as the Labour cringe when Tony Blair rushed to offer Britain as a so-called "equal partner" in invading Iraq. William Hague, as shadow foreign secretary, assured the embassy in confidence he considered the US his "other country" and promised "a pro-American regime".
This degree of toadying clearly poses problems for the Americans. The dispatches repeat genuine appreciation of Britain's unique loyalty as an ally. But LeBaron was typically shrewd to call this behaviour "corrosive".
What a creepy little country we've become.
Also some coverage of HB issues here
first of poppy paintings has gone over very well (6 month anniversary today! - my word, am getting soppy...).
ReplyDeletenow to see if anyone is going to the pub to watch the footy hehehehehehehehe.
Since I know that RedMiner at least sometimes reads this site, I would like to suggest that he thinks about putting the deleted post here, if he saved it.
ReplyDeleteThis would not involve any commitment to post here regularly.
He could just post it anonymously.
[Sorry about my absence for a few days, I will get Atomgirl to send Montana a sick note]
PS Nice to see people demonstrating about the corporate tax-fiddling mates of Dave1.
ReplyDeleteFrom Vodafone to TopShop and the odious Philip Green, connoisseur of government cuts, this one could run and run.
PPS Why do excessively rich old men like Green and the American Trumper the Clown have such ridiculous haircuts?
After all, they could afford to have their mops chopped professionally, rather than appear as if their gardeners do it in the evenings when drunk.
PPS Atomgirl has done her normal Winterval routine and hacked a clump out of the hair at the back of my head, so I am probably on heightened hair alert at the moment.
Meerkatjie
ReplyDeleteNot sure what you are talking about specifically but I am assuming you are having a smile at some of the waddya shenanigans.
But it isn't something you should feel apologetic about. It is just human nature that, after trying to engage properly and politely with someone, if they still insist on being completely offensive and a numpty for no reason, that you would want to laugh at it and point out just how daft it is.
Compassion, after all, isn't about "being nice" to people and pandering to them when they are behaving like eejits. That just reinforces their delusions and ultimately ends up hurting them more because reality doesn't actually match up to what they believe, and it will jump up and hit them on the nose in a bad way if they keep on deluding themselves.
And laughing at someone for being daft can be a very compassionate thing to do if there is the remotest possibility that it might jolt them out of their daftness and make them realise the damage they are doing to themselves (and sometimes other people).
Here endeth the lesson - well it is Sunday after all! :o)
Just my two penn'orth anyway.
Oh, it was the Mead thing. The quote he was using comes from his hero Pinker. I think it suggests something about breadth of reading....
ReplyDeleteIt's got him a bit pink under the collar, I think. He's starting to get a bit frothy at the mouth. :-)
FWIW, though, I actually really like Bracken (I know it's not a popular view, but he reminds me of so many blokes I've known and loved to fight with over the years), so it's a fond bit of gloating I'm indulging in here.
Oh but yeah, the other one's just a source of bemusement, BB. I'm actually really pretty much never rude to him, I don't think - I'm probably much more careful not to be rude to him than I am with other posters. so I alternate between amusement and 'wtf', most of the time when dealing with him.
ReplyDeleteBB - "Cadbury - our latest trans-national tax-dodgers" SNAP! My very first thought!
ReplyDeleteTimboktu--thanks for that CC, seems to be runnng faster:)
Philippa --Hutton! The quality of the comments just shows that there is no paucity in UK of intelligence, bloody common sense, decency, analytical ability, knowledge, SO fuck him and his "talent gap". He is part of the problem not part of the solution, the wanker. Even FedEx was more on the ball than him... Fightingbull is chieftroll today, but really not worth the ammo imo.
Golem's link to the IMF paper is well worth a look. Bottom of page9 and page10 . For an idea.
Believe it or not, I like Bracken as well. I see him more as a kind of intellectual troll, a "light the blue touch paper and step back" kind of guy who is mostly having a bit of fun, as opposed to someone who is a seriously vicious right-wing troll. (Although he can say some truly vicious horrible things and I will be the first to give him a bollocking when he does - he oversteps the mark into the spiteful ad hom far to easily and seamlessly at times).
ReplyDeleteUnless I'm hallucinating there should be post from me somewhere on here - think I've been spammed. Can someone rescue it? Ta
ReplyDeleteDave
ReplyDeleteWhen you think of the altruistic foundations of the Cadbury empire it makes me want to puke to see what Kraft are up to now. Although it doesn't bloody surprise me. John Cadbury must be rolling in his grave... :(
dave - aye, should perhaps have stressed that article was 'interesting' rather than 'good', and that it is the thread that makes it...
ReplyDeletebut have a bit of a hangover so such nuances were too much for me earlier.
first deaths from cold being reported here. three 'SDFs' (sans domicile fixe). it is bitter - local charities going round trying to round up custom for shelters...
MsChin -- I too thought of parking RedMiner's post, which I did for bartelbe on Hutton, but I thought --"No, they can't, can they?"
ReplyDeleteThat really is censorship of the News.
I'll take a look in the spambox, sheff x
ReplyDeleteDave and MsChin, the thing I find most bemusing about the removal of RM's post is the way people are trying to justify it as understandable. The claims that it's not censorship, that it must be something else, it couldn't possibly be political interest underpinning the removal of the post... it's odd.
ReplyDeleteAre people unfamiliar with the idea of state censorship? Do they think that it doesn't happen in nice countries like Britain?
Meerkatjie
ReplyDeleteI wondered if it was because there is some legal aspect to it that the Graun don't want to become embroiled in. But even that doesn't make any sense - it certainly didn't stop them reporting the Nick Griffin EHRC commission shenanigans.
So yes - perhaps it is just plain old censorship. Which is bloody disgusting.
If this was the first time I'd seen stuff simply getting removed because it was critical of a member of the government, I might think that it was something explicable. But it isn't. I've seen several things disappear off various internet sites - facebook, twitter, etc.
ReplyDeleteI guess on the Guardian, abuse of the report feature might explain some of it. But quite whose life is small enough to be wandering around the site reporting minor copyright infringements etc all over the place? It's just daft. Gegen's disappearing post yesterday is another example. There might be some logical explanation, just about, but it's clear that the intention to censor is there.
Meerkatjie
ReplyDeleteI hardly ever go to The Guardian now, let alone Dribbly, so I do not know what is happening there.
However, it may be less to do with people not believing that CiF could be involved with blatant censorship - after all, plenty of us have highlighted it over the years - and more to do with some people being desperate to collude in the protection of CiF against any criticism.
They are so addicted to posting their addled, half-arsed thoughts on what they have convinced each other is the ne plus ultra site on the internet that they cannot bear to think that:
a. It might be a long way short of adequate, quite apart from perfect.
b. Others might see it for the sham it is and then their own credibility would take a nosedive along with the reputation of CiF.
c. They cannot bring themselves to imagine that their desperation to belong to something, anything which will have them may have led them into becoming the whores and pimps who give The Guardian as many free rides a day as it likes.
I could be wrong, of course, as I have not even bothered to look.
The problem is, I have seen it so many times before over there, I doubt that I am.
BB I like Peter too. Behind the aggressive and sometimes vindictive bullshit there is a very sensitive and sometimes brilliant human being. He has hang-ups which are obvious to others, but then, evolving past those are what makes life so interesting!
ReplyDeletePhil -- I never thought for a millisecond you were approving the Hutton article in any possible way ..
CIF really has gone proper daft at the moment, in much the way that many of us here predicted.
ReplyDeleteAt first I was quite pissed off, then I was a bit sad, for like a few minutes, now, if I can be arsed to look at all, it's pretty much for the belly laughs.
The self-delusion, paranoia, and bizarre 'right on' circle-jerking is, quite honestly, fucking hilarious!!
I'm afraid I can't join in the Bracken relativisation. I don't mind his ad-homs (he can call me a deluded, mincing, limp-wristed nancy boy all he wants, it just shows him up as a homophobe with a nasty temper), but I do take exception to his bitey-style habit of misquoting, inventing and especially "extrapolating" in order to smear me.
ReplyDeleteIf I say I'm against the NATO attack on Yugoslavia, that doesn't entitle you to wait a couple of days and then announce on another thread that I've come out as a fan of Milosevic, Bracken.
Any more than I can conclude, Bracken-style, from your attacks on East Germany that you prefer the regime it replaced, and so announce on another thread that you're a self-confessed admirer of the Nazis.
So why don't you and bitey just stop the sneaky, dishonest crap? Are you afraid you'll never win an honest argument?
I thought it was me that was dishonest. Ah, I just can't keep up!
ReplyDeleteSpike -- there are some arguments that are just not worth having?
ReplyDeleteIt's called feeding the troll.
As for 'smears' and 'libel', BOF !
Spike
ReplyDeleteRelativisation indeed. Some people are very different in real life.
Monkeyfish once observed that some of us - not all, but many - seem to get caught up in the persona we project online - and that for some it can become a limitation, a trap even; the diminishing returns of merely fulfilling expectations we place on ourselves.
Bitey's always banging on about manners in discourse - as if that's the primary indication of civilisation - yet can he play feats of intellectual dishonesty that would put many people out of business in real life were they to try it on their associates.
I personally don't have a row with bracken, and don't follow the Dibley Mail, so have missed much of this bullshit lately, but I can see how you might readily apply the same to PB, from what you're saying.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAfternoon all
ReplyDeleteI got into a spat recently with Fencewalker who took exception to me asking 'He who has had a long eventful life' to clarify something for me.For some reason i got modded and FW didn't even though i genuinely thought i wasn't breaking any rules.Anyways i asked the mods to explain their decision and i've actually got a reply-
Apparently someone reported me as being 'off topic' and because being 'off topic' is a breach of the community guidelines the mods were duty bound to delete my posts.-Not sure how i was 'off topic ' mind.Anyways if i'd reported FW for being 'off topic'as well then his posts would have been deleted too.But because neither myself nor anyone else reported FW his posts have been left standing-even though they were no more or less 'off topic' than mine.Well that's clear then!
@BW
Great John Lee Hooker track at the end of the last thread.
On the other side of the Pond--
ReplyDeleteThe Only Job Growth in the Last Year Has Been in Part-Time Jobs Paying $20,000 pa.
The former director of the Office of Management and Budget under Ronald Reagan - David Stockman - just gave some stunning statistics on unemployment.
Stockman told CNBC that two-thirds of the jobs which have been created in the last year - the jobs which everyone talks about each month - are only part-time jobs, averaging $20,000 per year.
Stockman pointed out that that type of salary is not enough to raise a family, let alone to allow the type of spending which would lead to a recovery.
Stockman also said:
• "The job outlook as a trend is a lot worse than people think"
• Zero "breadwinner jobs" (full-time jobs paying enough to raise a family with) have been created in the last year
• For the first time ever, the government sector is shrinking: "the reason is that governments are broke... we are going to have to cut back government employment."
Link to georgewashington2 and Watch the interview:
--------------------------
We've already got 'some' precarity but more on the way as in the US ...
Either it is down into the Dystopian pit or somewhere, in some country, we'll find remedies.
I wonder where?
Just started watching Metanoia documentary on propaganda " PsyWar".
ReplyDeleteVery good. Mostly reminders so far, but does fill gaps and reinforce -- like finding out exactly which mob organised the SaddamStatueTopple !
Pause to go outside while still light ;
Hi guys, on the Hutton thread, Fightingbull(shit)is all over the place. He would like all low paid public sector workers like cleaners to be on short term outsourced contracts so they cannot claim sickness nor pensions. A nasty individual all in all. It reminds me of a headline seen on the morning news last week about how someone is paying for right-wing trolls to comment on boards. I do wonder sometimes how these people have the time and resilience to take on all-comers in defence of the indefensible, maybe that is the reason?
ReplyDeleteDaveFF,
ReplyDeleteThe figures aren't so much 'cooked', but rather marinated, sautéd, garnished with Himalayan alfalfa, and served up on a bed of saffron infused cous cous.
Was ever thus though, but it does seem that there are less and less people prepared to call bullshit nowadays, although, in fairness, with all these articles about 'Cameron the gent', 'Slankies' and 'The cuts impact on my kids dressage
classes' to write, one does have to prioritise I suppose....
boy, i must be bored. just opened this month's copy of 'Tax Advisor' (my one visible benefit from paying the institute subs every year...)
ReplyDeletecover story - the Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility.
ready?
In September 2009 the UK and Liechtenstein governments signd several agreements aimed at increasing tax transparency
...gooood. tell me more...
They signed a joint declaration, a tax information exchange agreement and a memorandum and (sic) understanding, introducing a five-year tax assistance and compliance programme and a five-year tax disclosure facility in the UK
...intriguing. please elaborate...
Very briefly, the programme requires Liechtenstein financial intermediaries (LFIs) to review their clients to identify those who may have tax liabilities in the UK and seek that those clients demonstrate UK tax compliance
...very sensible. any catches?
In return HMRC in the UK would provide a tax disclosure facility allowing those individuals wih irregularities to disclose them and settle with HMRC on beneficial terms
hmmm. how 'beneficial'?
The tax disclosure campaing in the UK (the LDF) commenced on 1 September 2009. The LDF has developed and evolved from its introduction and continues to do so. This is its strength
...I am starting to get suspicious, now. how 'beneficial'?
Its key terms are:
- A 10% fixed penalty, no penalty where there is innocent error.
- Pay tax and interest back to 6 April 1999 (not the 20 years that the HMRC can normally go back for where tax has not been paid as a result of a deliberate wrongdoing (if the additional tax is as a result of innocent error or carelessness the number of years might be limited to four or six years))
- There is a guarantee of no prosecution providing there is no underlying criminal activity under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (tax evasion excepted in the case*)
-There is scope to apply a composite rate of 40% to cover all duties for the years up until 5 April 2009**
*badly worded, but means that tax evasion is not in this case considered to be 'criminal'.
**meaning that if there are several types of liability (IT, CT, s419, IHT) the tax due could be well under what would otherwise be due. or you can apply the 'regular' rate if that would be lower than 40%. your choice.
Also...
one thing that has been particularly helpful is the opportunity within the facility to approach HMRC on a no-names basis to explore whether a case is relevant to LDF or not
Also...
as we go to press, we have seen the ground-breaking agreement between the Swiss and UK governments to intensify cooperation on tax. As part of this, one could see the introduction of a Swiss Disclosure Facility (SDF), particularly given the success of the LDF
Well then. Best check my evasively held off-shore accounts to see if I can clean my record without barely feeling it.
the basic rule re tax evasion - HMRC can go back 20 years to assess the tax due at the full rate in force at the time, and charge a 100% penalty on top.
the LDF rule - ten years (poss less) on the assessment, at a possibly lower rate than otherwise due, and a 10% penalty.
you'd be dumb not to, eh?
(italicised sections are quotes from article "is this the way to Liechtenstein?" by Gary Ashford in the November 2010 ediution of Tax Advisor, (c) CIOT)
IanG -- same question yesterday at craigmurray. Unless you actually track a shill back to its office computer (which was done by GMWatch to a PR Company office on a Monsanto thread), there's no way of telling with the high-quality opponent.
ReplyDeleteA group of us wrangled for months with a couple of them on such subjects, but could never get further than VERY strong suspicion!
@DFF, thanks for the info. That is one reason (like AB said earlier here) I do not bother anymore with CiF. However, I do admire PCC and others who fight long and hard but I never see anyone actually be persuaded by reasonable arguments. So where do we go from here? Are these discussions just lightening conductors that sink our fury to earth so that we don't get on the streets?
ReplyDeleteOn another topic there is a FB page to get support to stop Thatch getting a sate send off. I support that of course but again I see no way having thousands of followers will make the slightest difference.
MrsBootstraps
ReplyDeleteSo yes - perhaps it is just plain old censorship. Which is bloody disgusting.
Turned over a new leaf censor in chief?
.
ReplyDeleteShallcross / spike
So why don't you and bitey just stop the sneaky, dishonest crap? Are you afraid you'll never win an honest argument?
Did you read the threads I referred you to yesterday when you claimed:
There are plenty of people who remember your defences of child sexual abuse, though.
So let me direct you to WDYWTTA Here
and
Here
so you can read what I posted and what others from UT posted in response - PhillipaB, MsChin, Fencewalker, MrsBootstraps, scherfig, among others. Then when you've read the posts you can show here where I'm defending child sexual abuse.
And just to help you on your way here's my first post of the subject to some chump by the name of Auric, but it just as easily applies to you:
Auric:
Your prejudice against feminism comes through very clearly in your post, although there's no evidence whatever that either the 15 year old student or the 26 year old teacher were feminists. And even if they were why would that matter? But why let that bother you when you can get 8 recommendations so easily?
And if you are going to describe a loving relationship between two women of 15 and 26 years using the word for the most heinous sexual act known, paedophilia, how then do you differentiate it from the monster Steven Barker in the Baby P case who raped a two year old girl?
Unlike you Shallcross, Auric was sufficiently sensible to realise his mistake and backed away gracefully.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletewoah, deja-vile...
ReplyDeletePhilippa,
ReplyDeleteWas wondering how one could pull off a 'tough on tax avoidance, yet business friendly' position, with a 'we're all in this together' theme tune, without you know, actually doing anything!!
Job's a good 'un!!
Still, it's the thought that counts and all that....
Bitterweed
ReplyDeleteBitey's always banging on about manners in discourse - as if that's the primary indication of civilisation - yet can he play feats of intellectual dishonesty that would put many people out of business in real life were they to try it on their associates.
I'd really be interested in any examples you might have of what you call my intellectual dishonesty Bitterweed.
I quite like the intellectual bit, I don't often get called that, but dishonest?
IanG:
ReplyDelete"It reminds me of a headline seen on the morning news last week about how someone is paying for right-wing trolls to comment on boards. I do wonder sometimes how these people have the time and resilience to take on all-comers in defence of the indefensible, maybe that is the reason?"
I strongly believe that this is going on and has for some considerable time. Many of the trolls are spouting the same stuff off-pat, over and over again, my suspicion is that this is a well-organised operation.
As for censorship on CiF re: RedMiner and others.... it has been going on so systematically since CiF started, I can only conclude that Comment was never meant to be entirely 'free' - ever.
james - what is most troubling to me is the almost smugly approving tone of the article - after setting out the terms (above - which are of most interest to the wider audience), there was just so much 'oh, this is wonderful, see how many of your clients could benefit!' that i felt a bit ill.
ReplyDeleteit's basically saying that readers - members of the CIOT who have to abide by a code of ethics that requires you to stop acting for clients who are evading tax and do not 'fess up - have clients who have been, erm, evading tax and not fessing up. how exactly that sits with the prof standards, i don't know...
Replies to several things:
ReplyDelete@Jack:
I love Louis Prima. The Jungle Book is probably a big factor in that. Here he is with Keely.
As for embedding videos in comments, I don't think Blogger lets you do that (but I'll look in a bit). We tried a 3rd party comment function on UT2 awhile back that did let people embed videos & had a lot of other functions that Blogger's comments doesn't have, but we found that the videos slowed the page loading time considerably.
@LaRit & BB:
I've had a poster of that Cadbury ad on my kitchen wall for years. Odd to find it online. Kraft briefly owned a candy-making factory here in Cowpat Junction. They were such a shit company to work for that my union-hating, right-wing pinhead industrial engineer brother, who took a job with them just after they took the place over, quit after only a month, because he thought they were too hard on their employees!
@Tim:
Thanks for the CCleaner. It never occurred to me that there would be such a thing out there. I do sometimes use Chrome, so it's nice to have something that will take care of them both at the same time.
General comment:
I'm with Spike on Bracken. I don't get the "I actually kind of like the guy" business, I really don't. Calling him a jizzbucket is an insult to buckets full of jizz. Nothing redeeming about him, whatsoever.
Have been dossing about and lounging in the bath all afternoon whilst listening to R4. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but am wondering whether Auntie Beeb is either, trying to tell us something or preparing us for an unpleasant fate.
ReplyDeleteStarted off with a production of I Claudius, which was about duplicity, violence and the poisoning and assassination of almost his entire family.
followed by a discussion of Sara Halls dystopian novel The Carhullan Army - very gloomy, no happy ending.
Then we got an indepth dissection about Stevie Smith's poem Not Waving But Drowning. Great poem btw, but not cheerful and tends to encourage sombre introspection in me. See poem below.
The news headlined, a (possible) Russian spy employed by a LibDem MP, death by shark attack and the parlous state of the EU economy.
Now file on 4 is looking at how vast quantities of EU cash have ended up in the hands of the Sicilian Mafia.
All good stuff but no breaks from the melancholy tone. Think its either listening to Leonard Cohen or slitting my wrists...
Stevie Smith - Not Waving But Drowning
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
R4 Christmas Appeal prog immensely difficult, but somehow uplifting, listening...
ReplyDeleteMontana, I visit lots of music blogs and 8 out of 10 of them are blogspot blogs; they all feature embedded youtube vids.
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with blogspot's internal workings but I suspect it's much like wordpress: a simple matter of ticking the 'allow embedding' option in the dashboard or control panel or whatever they call it.
I know that in wordpress, it isn't on by default--you have to 'allow' it but it's simple as hell. Well worth doing, I think.
...and just to inspire you, here's idiot-savant Chet Baker at his breezy, insouciant 23 year-old best. Like a quick blast of sunshine...Chet Baker Quartet - Band Aid (1953)
Evening all!
ReplyDeleteBack from weekend in Cardiff - fantastic time - gorgeous drive back today in sunshine mostly via scenic routes. (To find a dog covered in fox poo, but not all can be perfect.)
Waved at Anne and Leni en passant.
So PayPal has blocked WikiLeaks too and now Assange's lawyers are being stalked by the security security services. Marvellous.
Democracy and free speech (and freedom of the press) really are just shams, aren't they.
Dave
ReplyDeleteInteresting post about the growth of p/t employment in the States.The same applies over year with the rise on p/t jobs disguising the extent to which f/t employment has declined over the last year or so..
If memory serves me correctly there are currently around one million people in this country working p/t who want a f/t job.Which bodes ill for the unemployed as those in p/t jobs may be at the head of the queue when/if demand for f/t workers starts rising again.Plus some economists predict we may be headed for a period of 'jobless growth' where any growth is fuelled by incresed productivity from those currenly in-work and not by extra workers.
Montana, as near as I can tell, having embedded vids doesn't really affect the page load speed. What really does slow it down, though, is having too many posts per page (5 is considered the optimal max).
ReplyDeleteBut check out THIS (blogspot) BLOG and you'll see what I mean about embedding and page-load speed.
have just eaten the bag of macaroons purchased at the Christmas market. now feel immensely Christmassy...
ReplyDeleteJack
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Chet Baker - has done its work and cheered me up.
Don't know whether you're into poetry but Larkin (big jazz fan) wrote the following about Sidney Bechet
For Sidney Bechet
That note you hold, narrowing and rising, shakes
Like New Orleans reflected on the water,
And in all ears appropriate falsehood wakes,
Building for some a legendary Quarter
Of balconies, flower-baskets and quadrilles,
Everyone making love and going shares--
Oh, play that thing! Mute glorious Storyvilles
Others may license, grouping around their chairs
Sporting-house girls like circus tigers (priced
Far above rubies) to pretend their fads,
While scholars manqués nod around unnoticed
Wrapped up in personnels like old plaids.
On me your voice falls as they say love should,
Like an enormous yes. My Crescent City
Is where your speech alone is understood,
And greeted as the natural noise of good,
Scattering long-haired grief and scored pity
Sheff, I've got Larkin's collected jazz writings All What Jazz. He's great on what he loves (US jazz circa 1910-1939) but he was rubbish on what he didn't get (Charlie Parker, Dizzy, Miles Davis etc). A deeply flawed man (just like the rest of us--men, I mean) but a great poet.
ReplyDeleteYou don't know if I'm into poetry? It is to laugh, my dear...they published one of my poems in the G2 section a few weeks ago and five of mine appear in The Guardian Poster Poets Anthology 2008-2009...into poetry, forsooth..
This one's for @RedMiner, courtesy of the exciting, new Grauniad...Sammy Davis Jr. - Siddown, You're Rockin' The Boat
ReplyDeleteOh fuck it Jack...My big left foot in it again. I didn't know you were a poet. Grannies and eggs spring to mind. Will explore..
ReplyDelete'Over year' should read 'over here' and 'on p/t jobs' should read 'in p/t jobs. Duh! Sigh!
ReplyDeletewoteva!
ReplyDeleteEvenin' all.
ReplyDeleteSheff, I like Bechet's Creole music. Are you familiar with the French blues harp player, Jean-Jaques Milteau? He can play a bit.
Great music from Montana and Jack today, here's a bit of Milteau for Jack the Man.
play nice!
ReplyDeletesnigger?
ReplyDeleteOh dear think I'm mobbing .
ReplyDeleteSomething like this Habib
ReplyDeleteCreole blues It's fantastic!
Oh, yes habib - I liked that Milteau - thanks for that, he;s new to me.
ReplyDeletePaul-- At least the US Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics do give numbers for people doing P/T work who want F/T, which is part of the U6 Unemployment figure of 17%, as opposed to U3 which is the 'headline' one at 9.8%.
ReplyDeleteIn France you can remain on the Unemployed Register even while working up to 68hrs a month.
Bloody statistics indeed, but the U6 is useful in arguments...
I'd like to know where the hell I have to move to to get a part-time job that pays $20k/year. I'm guessing that it's a place where the cost of living is a helluva lot higher than it is in Cowpat Jct. I'd be a lot more comfortable if I made $20k/year.
ReplyDelete@Jack:
Hmm. That page took nearly 6 minutes to load for me (this one usually takes a few seconds). The videos are embedded in the post, not the comments. I can, and have in the past, embed videos there. It's embedding them in the comments that can't be done with Blogger.
This is worth a read
ReplyDeletehttp://maxdunbar.wordpress.com/2010/12/05/beyond-the-blank-page-what-is-the-point-of-ed-miliband/
...especially as it raises the all-too-pertinent question of what the fuck are Labour up to..not that I care..but I think we should be told...
"Labour’s response to all this has been to spend four months fucking around with a leadership contest, and now, apparently, we are going to spend more months fucking around with a policy review. In a big hyped speech Miliband announced ’22 policy inquiries’ and ‘the formation of a series of working groups, chaired by shadow cabinet ministers, intended to lay the ground for a new policy programme to take Labour into the next general election.’ Sorry, Ed, but do we really have time for all this shit? Have we really earned the luxury of the blank page?"
I was teasing, Sheff. I'm not a poet, more of a versifier..but there is some good stuff in the Anthology.
ReplyDeleteThe 6 poems they published in G2 (including mine) can be seen HERE (the Graun's Poster Poems blog).
Ahhh...I see, Montana. Mind you, that blog I linked to loads instantly for me..but if you can't embed in the comments, there's really no point.
You can in wordpress. It should be fairly straight-forward to migrate this whole blog to a wordpress blog, though...just sayin'...
Monkeyfish, I don't know if you saw the original but in a piece posted on Counterpunch, Alexander Cockburn (son of one of my teenage heroes, Claud Cockburn, great muck-raking journo and author of Beat The Devil, which became a fine John Houston/Bogart film) recalls meeting Ed when the future Labour leader was working as an intern at the Nation magazine in New York. It was the late 1980s or early 1990s.
ReplyDelete"Round the corner from the Nation when it was on Fifth and 13th St in Manhattan was Zinno's restaurant," writes Cockburn, "and amid a pleasant lunch with Jo An Wypijewski [one of the leftist weekly's editors], my own intern Richie McKerrow and Eddie, I asked the future leader what I asked all interns as a matter of form, 'Eddie, is your hate pure?'"
Cockburn explains that as a young journalist he had been asked this question by the late Jim Goode, editor of Penthouse. "Goode, tall and cadaverous, was gay, clad in black leather as he crouched on the floor of his office, gazing morosely at hundreds of photos of bare-breasted women. As I entered with some screed about corporate and political evil, he snarled, 'Alex, is your hate pure?'... 'Yes, Jim, my hate is pure.'"
It was, Cockburn writes, a good way of judging interns. The feisty ones would respond excitedly: "Yes, my hate is pure."
So Cockburn put the question to young Ed. "He gaped at me in shock like Gussie Fink-Nottle watching one of his newts vanish down the plug hole in his bath. "I… I… don't hate anyone, Alex," he stammered.
Cockburn concludes: "It's all you need to know. English capitalism will be safe in his hands, assuming he ever grasps the levers of what passes for power in 10 Downing Street. It is very hard to imagine him as prime minister. He's forever Fink-Nottle to me."
Says it all, really...
monkeyfish
ReplyDeletewhat labour are doing in the UK is no different from the left in Italy....who IMO are far far worse.........is it possible that haven't even attempted to capitalise one iota on the glaring failures of the berlusconi government, i mean even a three year old could win an election on the social economic and foreign policy failures of berlusco not even mentioning his tendancy to screw underage girls, take advantage of prostitutes and have cocaine floating around.
i think that there is a conspiracy.........said spam aunty......
Evening all
ReplyDeleteI am a couple of days behind.
MF
We need an opposition now - the minutiae of policy can come later. The Labour party should be in there now speaking from a position of long held leftist views about society, employment, wages etc.
Where is the challenge coming from ?
Quick skim of waddya - arguing about the nature of intelligence.
ReplyDeleteWe need a debate about how theories of intelligence have shaped/are shaping society and how behaviour can be manipulated to suit political ends.
Behaviour is certainly malleable - at national level and personally in response to experiences.
Sheff, as the spambot ate my last comment, I'll repeat myself: I was just teasing you. I'm not a 'poet', I just enjoy writing verse. There's some good stuff in that Anthology, though.
ReplyDeleteleni
ReplyDeleteyes true but i really don't think it's going to happen...not from the "traditional" opposition parties because they have been following the politics of the right for years,just with a bit of icing to make them look different, what's needed is a movement that snubs the existing political structure and that comes out against the monetarist policies of the last 3 and a half decades. the real challenge won't ever come from the labour party that there is now
Bitterweed
ReplyDeleteCockburn concludes: "It's all you need to know. English capitalism will be safe in his hands, assuming he ever grasps the levers of what passes for power in 10 Downing Street. It is very hard to imagine him as prime minister. He's forever Fink-Nottle to me."
Well including James Ramsay MacDonald, when did any Labour leader exist other than to ensure English capitalism was safe?
gndolfo
ReplyDeleteSadly I have to agree. 30 years ago we had politicians on the left who would have been out on the streets by now leading the opposition.
Where are the moral agents in the upper echelons now ? Are there any ?
A new movement - here and elsewhere - is urgently needed.
How are the purple people doing ?
Just restored 3 posts from the Spambugger.
ReplyDeleteJack/Sheff - have you ever seen the great film 'Bird' about Charlie Parker?
Oh my
ReplyDeleteThey have commissioned another piece from that bastard Bolton.
It will all end in tears...
Leni
ReplyDeleteI am pretty convinced that the sell-off of social housing in the Thatcher era was a piece of intricate social engineering. Home ownership as a be all and end all means that people become more self-centred.
If you are paying a mortgage, you are going to think twice about going on strike, missing a couple of payments, and risking your house being repossessed.
leni
ReplyDeletepurple people one year ago today, as it happens, were in 500,000 in the center of rome asking for berlusconi to resign.........alas nothing as far as i can see has come from it......lack of a uniform ideological base, invaded by political parties trying to get support; as what happened today at their first convention the parties of the traditional left webcammed their ideas in.....alas it seems that the popolo viola have also sold out..... cos they didn't really know what to do after calling for the resignation of berlusconi...they believe that if berlusconi goes all will be better....alas they haven't realised that berlusconi is the effect of a political system that is corrupt to the core, berlusco isn't the cause---he's the effect
Leni
ReplyDeleteSadly I have to agree. 30 years ago we had politicians on the left who would have been out on the streets by now leading the opposition.
1980 - Callaghan and Foot?
BB - I am NOT reading that on a Sunday evening!
ReplyDeleteYou can in wordpress. It should be fairly straight-forward to migrate this whole blog to a wordpress blog, though...just sayin'..
ReplyDeleteWe did a trial run of a Wordpress blog awhile back, when we were having an even greater than usual number of technical issues here. I think it's probably very easy to migrate it, but I think most people didn't care much one way or the other and inertia ruled the day.
Perhaps a UT poll is in order.
BB
ReplyDeleteselling socialhousing is just part of a bigger plan to reduce and remove governmental influence in all things social such as health, education, social security etc, etc.....the less government involvement the more free markets and "real" capitalism is allowed to take off.......Friedman economics simples.........
BB - oops indeed! ;-)
ReplyDeleteS/he is right though: freedom of speech as far as the US is concerned* has been shown to be a farce.
*I don't limit it to the US, it's just that this particular instance makes the point.
MrsBootstraps
ReplyDeleteBeautifulBurnout said...
Oops
Thought I would park this here, from the Bolton thread, as it is going to be zapped and instead I parked it on the bloody thread. Ah well... made myself look a tit again, but it is all in a good cause...
UnashamedLibertarian
Fuck off you imperialist cunt. It's called freedom of speech, and it shows what bastards the Yank establishment are once and for all.
It's about time the rest of the world put aside its differences and kicked the shit into the americans.
And does that include the beloved Montana?
05 December, 2010 20:30
FOB
ReplyDeleteBB
ReplyDeleteI am pretty convinced that the sell-off of social housing in the Thatcher era was a piece of intricate social engineering. Home ownership as a be all and end all means that people become more self-centred.
If you are paying a mortgage, you are going to think twice about going on strike, missing a couple of payments, and risking your house being repossessed.
Absolutely agree with you there.And for some employers someone say aged over 30 without a home of their own is seen as being somewhat lacking.
Also after getting home-ownership up to 70% in this country successive governments not only abolished mortgage interest relief for homeowners but also the interst payments for those mortgage holders who are unemployed.An extremely effective form of social control because employers and banks have in effect got people by the short'n'curlies.And government is more interested in pandering to them than to the ordinary working public.
MrsBootstraps
ReplyDeleteFOB
I guess this is what Bitterweed was referring to when he posted about intellectual dishonesty?
Is there any tenet of Buddhism that you wouldn't sacrifice for some cheap publicity MrsB?
Damn you, BB, you have made me read it. And post.
ReplyDeleteNow to read (some of) the comments.
"Is there any tenet of Buddhism that you wouldn't sacrifice for some cheap publicity MrsB?"
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure which tenet of buddhism you see being violated here?
FOB
ReplyDeleteThaum - the article is a disgrace, and it has brought some of the True American Patriots out in full flush, which is kind of gut-wrenching.
Thank god we have friends like Montana, and others who we know IRL, to remind us that fortunately at least half the US population doesn't agree with those idiots.
Nice one from Clunie:
ReplyDeleteAnd I still want to know if he wrote this for the Guardian - and if so, what sort of people is Alan Rusbridger consorting with these days? Couldn't he hang out with crack-dealing paedophile cannibals rather than coming down to the level of people like Bolton?
I don't dare look at the Bolton thread. I just don't need the aggravation.
ReplyDeleteIt will only upset you Montana. I wish I hadn't looked at it now.
ReplyDeletecouldn't be arsed to waste my precious energy on bolton.....just felt that it needed to be said that whatever he writes is shit.......why does the graun give space to that psycho.....
ReplyDeleteOh, Christ...not John 'Nutcase With A Dodgy 'Tache' Bolton? I can't bear to look...my blood pressure won't stand it.
ReplyDeleteI've got a better idea...
¡ Que piquanté, muchachos !... This one would make Fatty Arbuckle get up out of his grave and shake his not insubstantial booty... ¡ Vamos a bailar ! Teresa García Caturla - Liegó Teté
Bitey
ReplyDeleteYou've been shown clearly by a poster here as selectively (mis)-quoting him to suit an agenda in the last two days. This is a complaint levelled against you so often it could be construed as a character flaw. Or a witch-hunt if you're you, of course. As I say, I doubt if this is how you go about your business "in real life", so it seems odd to do it here.
@thauma
ReplyDelete"Couldn't he hang out with crack-dealing paedophile cannibals"
Nah, wikileaks was last week.
Meerkatjie said...
ReplyDelete"Is there any tenet of Buddhism that you wouldn't sacrifice for some cheap publicity MrsB?"
I'm not sure which tenet of buddhism you see being violated here?
Me neither Meerkatjie and I was hoping one of you Buddhism experts would advise whether condemning the entire population of a country of 300 million people as being worthy of having the "shit" kicked out of them, was something that contravened Buddhist beliefs.
Right, time for bed.
ReplyDeleteHave had a look at the weather forecast and it seems that the high temperature for tomorrow will be minus 4.
*shivers*
NN all.
BB I looked but couldn't think of anything unmoddable so didnt post . Evil man. Maybe NN, as the BPITW beckons ...XX
ReplyDeleteBitterweed said...
ReplyDeleteBitey
You've been shown clearly by a poster here as selectively (mis)-quoting him to suit an agenda in the last two days. This is a complaint levelled against you so often it could be construed as a character flaw. Or a witch-hunt if you're you, of course. As I say, I doubt if this is how you go about your business "in real life", so it seems odd to do it here.
I think you're referring to the accusation made by Shallcross, but he's failed completely to respond with any evidence. If it isn't Shallcross please tell me who it is.
But if it is Shallcross it's not surprising coming from someone who's dedicated his life, or most of it to promoting a creed that most of the world has come to realise was a serious error, to say the very least, apart from Shallcross who continues to litter the pavements of one of the world's most beautiful cities with his masters' delusions.
What amazes me more than anything is that he, compared to me, really is intelligent, so why does he continue to live this world communism delusion?
Our high today was -7°. Supposed to be about the same tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteLeni
ReplyDelete"We need an opposition now - the minutiae of policy can come later."
I agree but I don't see Labour stepping up to the plate...reckon Ed doesn't know just how much he can condemn since he's probably got more of the same in stall for us anyway should he ever get the chance.
Jack Cade
I know what you mean...that's the political classes these days in a nutshell...one to one mapping onto Wodehouse buffoons...something to do with our 'classless society', no doubt...mind you, I'd still take Ed over Cameron...Dave's Spode with a semi-literate PR consultant
BTH
How can you seriously object to the "paedophile with a million air-miles" tag, given the interpretative contortions you apply daily to other people's posts?...judged on your own surreal and unbounded standards of 'evidence', you should have been sharing a cell with Ian Huntley five years ago...just drop it..you're making such a twat of yourself.
MF
ReplyDeleteHe won't drop it until he's "won".
I recall, from a post of his on Friday night, that "winning" means me apologising to him for reporting him to the mods for abuse and writing to them to ask for his reinstatement.
Given the nature of that particular comment, which wasn't just about me but also suggested - in his mother's "voice" - that gays will all be burnt in hell, I can announce to you this evening, that this is the day my apology and request for his reinstatement will happen.
@BB
ReplyDeleteDoes that include gay women who groom their pupils? And was it in his mother's "voice" as in Norman Bates?
Anyway, for bitey.
In the series, "Our idols have feet of clay", I'm very disappointed by the Vicky Coren article.
I was also about to get angry with David Mitchell until I read his piece and discovered he's the victim of the usual sub-editor comprehension deficit. Shouldn't CiF get people who can read to write their headlines? Or perhaps I'm being unfair. Possibly the sub-eds aren't given time to read the articles they caption.
True, MF...Spink-Bottle is infinitely preferable to Spode...but, Jesus: this is the best Labour can manage? At a time that calls for...I dunno..Hereward The Wake or something...it's depressing...and here's some more depressing news:
ReplyDeleteFor daily, or even hourly, updates on the life of Cheryl Cole, a British television talent-show judge and sometime pop singer who used to be married to a soccer star, there may be no better resource than the Web site of The Daily Mail.
Is the comely Ms. Cole headed to America to join the U.S. version of “The X Factor”? Is she scouting around for real estate in Los Angeles? Will a seven-year-old assault conviction deny her a U.S. visa? Mail Online is on the case.
Readers have noticed. According to the research firm comScore, more than 32 million people flock to the British newspaper’s site every month for the latest on Ms. Cole, as well as news of narrower interest.
Its growth curve has been remarkable: Created only two years ago, Mail Online now has the second-largest Web audience of any paper in the world, behind only Nytimes.com, the combined site of The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune. --NYT, today (full article HERE)
monkeyfish
ReplyDeleteBTH
How can you seriously object to the "paedophile with a million air-miles" tag, given the interpretative contortions you apply daily to other people's posts?...judged on your own surreal and unbounded standards of 'evidence', you should have been sharing a cell with Ian Huntley five years ago...just drop it..you're making such a twat of yourself.
05 December, 2010 21:56
So once more monkeyfish you fail to come up with a single quote of mine that backs up your accusations, which really do sink to a low that I doubted even you could reach. And I'll save you the trouble looking as you won't find one.
Ian Huntley?
Do you think he would have quoted this on his profile?
Here
Or read this and die:
‘The pleasures of my life here are simple – simple, inexpensive and democratic. A warm hill of Marmande tomatoes on a roadside vendors stall. A cold beer on a pavement café of the Café de France – Marie Therese inside making me a sandwich au Camembert. Munching the knob off a fresh babuette as I wander back from Sainte-Sabine. The farinaceous smell of the white dust raised by a breeze from the driveway. A cuckoo sounding in the perfectly silent woods beyond the meadow. The huge grey, cerise, pink orange and washed out blue of a sunset seen from my rear terrace. The drilling of the cicadas at noon – the soft dialling tone of the crickets as dusk slowly gathers. A good book, a hammock and a cold, beaded bottle of blanc sec. A rough red wine and steak frites. The cool, dark, shuttered silence of my bedroom – and as I go to sleep, the prospect that all this will be available to me again, unchanged, tomorrow.’
I really expected better from an intelligent man like you - and I assume you are a man - who seems more at home in a Murdoch rag like the Sun than a semi-quality blog like this.
"...for the latest on Ms. Cole, as well as news of narrower interest."
ReplyDeleteNews of narrower interest? Are they having a fucking laugh?
My last post seems to have been spaghetti-effected into the spambot black hole...
ReplyDelete@jack cade
Cheryl Cole's of very broad interest. Sad, but true.
After all, we live in a world where the most googled name is Justin Bieber.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for the Hitchcock - Psycho references, they're becoming a bit like those repetitive Xmas tv adverts.
ReplyDeleteVery boring.
Couldn't the intellectual heavyweights of The Untrusted come up with something a little more original?
I'm quite prepared to entertain an accusation that I'm psychologically flawed, but please, surely with the likes of Meerkatjie, or Pen....... you could come up with something better than Hollywood or Soham.
I'm sadly out of touch, I guess. I have no idea who Ms. Cole is and wouldn't know her if she fell on me.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I do know who Justin Beiber is...check out his death on South Park.
Thanks to whoever rescued my little post from spam central.
ReplyDelete@jack cade
Let's just say that an awful lot of people would like Cheryl Cole to fall on them. The nation's sweetheart, they call her. At least the kind of people who get excited about The X Factor do.
Heheh. Good clip. I never realised Cthulhu was on the side of the angels.
He is now.
ReplyDeleteI'll bid youse all goodnight with this...The Shotgun Wedding Quintet - Don't Wake Me Up
Parce mihi domine
ReplyDeleteFrom these who have such paucity of ideas.
G'night, Jack.
ReplyDeleteBitey!!! You did a one liner with music. It wasn't particularly good, but nice one! Honestly, I've stopped reading you because you go on about the same shit over and over again.
ReplyDeleteNo, actually I like that one.
ReplyDeleteheyhabib
ReplyDeleteGarbarek's Officium, you will in time understand, was and is a classic of 20th century music.
But of course, as always, it's a matter of taste.
Is that the "Judean People's Front" or the "People's Front of Judea"
ReplyDeleteThis link has a graph in it which made my eyes glaze over 'cos that's what graphs do to my brain!
ReplyDeleteWorth a look though for anyone who doesn't lose the will to live at the sight of a graph
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
Hi Chekhov-- back from the BPITW, buy fourgettwofree night, I'm a sucker for graphs and fin/econ doomsterism.
ReplyDeleteI'll stick him in my 'favoris'. Along with Golem , georgewashington2, and other truth-tellers.
Making a guess from your 'exile', I've been 'exiled' too, but still going...
bitey, when you say
ReplyDeleteBut of course, as always, it's a matter of taste.
I just really want to take shower.