The Coffee House Wall – 5th/11th November

Posted on November 5, 2012

This is the Coffee House Wall for this week. I won’t say that it is your chance to communicate with us, as we are all in this together. It is, nevertheless, the Conservative Blog post that has no particular theme, and where everything is on topic. Let’s just remember that we want to avoid ad hominem attacks on others. We don’t want to engage with trolls. We want to moderate our language ourselves as responsible and mature adults, choosing to use fruity language only where it is necessary. This is our opportunity to show what the Spectator Coffee House Wall could have been like.

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299 thoughts on “The Coffee House Wall – 5th/11th November”

  1. In one final attempt, I just posted this “Testing – Benghazi – Testing”

    Rejected. They don’t like it up ’em Mr Mainwaring!

  2. Sorry Peter. didn’t realise you had refreshed the thread; that comment follows on from my last one on the previous thread.

  3. Just thought I’d copy these two postings from the New Spectator (under the latest one about how fab Ed is) in case the organ of free speech decides to press delete.

    Coffeehousewall • 2 hours ago
    Can the Spectator explain why it is banning more and more conservative commentators here? How can you have the cheek to run an edition talking about free speech when your best and loyalist commenters are being banned without any sort of communication.
    2 •Reply•Share ›

    IRISHBOY Coffeehousewall • 28 minutes ago
    Another institution changed irrevocably from within and for the worse.

    They didn’t like the people, so they changed the people and likewise, they didn’t like their readers so they’ve changed the readers. But for as long as we can bear it, we should remind them here that being fashionably left-wing may make these Pravda writers feel more comfortable, accepted and preserve their precious “access”, but experience, empiricism and individual freedom will always be made manifest, and happily, as experience has shown us, will always make those incapable or uncomfortable with free and questing thought who seek the comfort of other inadequates in a dogmatic consensus, squirm and lash out in the narcissistic adolescent immature way we know so well.

    We also know from experience, that the adolescence soon turns to totalitarian horror, and as we approach 11 November let’s just stop and think again about the terrible cost of re-running the truth and freedom versus control and extermination battle, and on which side of the line we stand.

    In the end, we’re all a minority of one.

  7. The BBC at every turn tells us that the USA presidential opinion polls show that the candidates are neck and neck but that Obama has a slight edge.

    If that is so then they are not neck and neck, I suspect that this is simply the BBC hoping that Obama is ahead.

    I never rated him, I do hope that the majority vote for Romney.

  8. Irish Boy 13:50 – “In the end, we’re all a minority of one.”

    How chilling, and how absolutely true.

  9. Well-Wisher (14:38)

    “Some real nasty pieces of work posting there lately, one in particular.”

    And that’s just the editor … some of the trolls are obnoxious, too. Not even useful as grist to the mill any more. Anyway I’m now blocked from the site. They’ll miss the footfalls – a few hundred thousand since they inaugurated the blog. Leftie bastards. Fuck ’em!

  10. Frank P at 19.02, pity, pity, such a pity you got blocked, Baron for one will miss you except that you must be smarter than whoever it is that’s blocking you. Change the name, come back, be more circumspect, more canny, camouflage yourself, if necessary open another gmail address, what’s the point of fuming on your own, ha?

  11. Frank P, I agree with Baron.
    The Left infiltrate and poison from within, but what’s sauce for the goose etc.. And as they’ve ruined the greatest most world-enhancing society ever known, the least we can do is make them squirm, and failing that, inconveniencing them is surely our duty!

    Verity, thank you for your approbation.

  12. Yes, do just set up another account and post again. When I think how long and profitably you have posted on the Spectator site it is despicable that they would ban you without any communication at all.

  13. The New Spectator uses an email and ISP blocker so in addition to changing the Disqus email address the account must be accessed from an alternate internet provider. I have given up on it, and the Telegraph which will moderate or delete the most innocuous post. Where is that freedom our forefathers fought for? BTW, either Telemachus is awol or he is also blocked.

  16. One last push – probably in vain, but if, as I fear, the US electorate gives Obama another four years, they will reap a whirlwind that will make Sandy Frankenstorm mere gnats flatulence by comparison:

    http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/11/05/bengazigate-house-of-cards-poised-to-crash-down-obama-regime-in-its-cross-hairs-addendum-to-bengazigate-mysteries-meandering-into-shia-iranian-territory-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/

    These are dangerous times and 15 million or so lemmings are heading for the cliff edge; let hope the other 15 million or so can form a barrier to deflect the stupidity.

  17. Baron/Peter

    Frankly, I don’t give a damn. I followed Melanie to the Speccy site when they set up their blog. When she was shafted I should have left anyway in protest. The only consolation to be salvaged from that craven treachery was that it probably cost the BB a cool £1m in shysters fees- a piss in the ocean to them no doubt. I only remained to play the gadfly and I’m surprised that they let me do so as long as they have, given my constant undermining of the BB game plan. The posts there are mainly too trivial and wet to deserve comment; I think most commenters go there for the other comments, not the posts. But as their revenue depends partly on the footfalls, I guess I served a purpose, but perhaps I’ve finally penetrated their vanity with some of more caustic comments, so they’ve cut and run. Fucking cowards.

    There are other platforms and this one has the sort of company I enjoy, so unless Peter decides to withdraw my licence, I shall continue to attempt to amuse the outlaws and abuse da henemy from this vantage point.

    And talking of amusment, here’s the latest fro NN:

    A lot of people can’t understand how we came to have an oil shortage in the UK.

    Well, there’s a very simple answer.

    Nobody bothered to check the oil.

    We just didn’t know we were getting low.

    The reason for that is purely geographical.

    Our OIL is located in the North Sea

    Our DIPSTICKS are located in Westminster.

  20. Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
    Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
    Humanity with all its fears,
    With all the hopes of future years,
    Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
    We know what Master laid thy keel,
    What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
    Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
    What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
    In what a forge and what a heat
    Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
    Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
    ’Tis of the wave and not the rock;
    ’Tis but the flapping of the sail,
    And not a rent made by the gale!
    In spite of rock and tempest’s roar,
    In spite of false lights on the shore,
    Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
    Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.
    Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
    Our faith triumphant o’er our fears,
    Are all with thee,—are all with thee!”

    Those with time to watch the results of the US presidential elections come in might wish to fill some of the longeurs by reading the following interview with Viscount Monckton which ends with Longfellow’s poem above:

    http://www.inquisitr.com/378251/interview-viscount-monckton-obama-would-not-mind-in-the-least-if-democracy-were-forever-destroyed/

  21. Malfleur (01.34)

    I quote one paragraph from your Monckton link – is this true? I know that we are bombarded by figures in the millions, billions and trillions every day; most of us can’t envisage the amounts involved, so we accept (or reject, as the case may be) whatever figures are thrown at us, but are there not some noughts missing off Lord Monckton’s quoted comparisons? I thought the US debt was now measured in trillions?

    “The central issue in the current election ought to be the bankruptcy of the United States. When Mr. Obama came to office, the accumulated national debt after two and a quarter centuries was $11 billion. It is now $17 billion. That rate of growth in total debt cannot be long sustained. It is now essential for the American people to replace the amateur in the White House with a successful, professional businessman who understands how many beans make 17 billion.”

    Just askin’

    Btw I’m a great fan of Monckton’s and don’t think he would have made such a mistake, if mistake it is, so I guess something was lost in the transcription?

    I thought the one comment about democracy after the article was disingenuous; Republic or otherwise, most of us accept that ‘democracy’ applies (in the loosest term) to the US, as with other Western Nations that are allowed to vote their leaders in or out; though most of us here have great reservations about how much of a ‘democracy’ exists in the UK with the boot of the EU bureaucracy on its neck.

  22. I suppose this should answer my question, but I get so nauseous looking at it I can’t count the commas. I suppose the upshot is that it was a huge feckin’ amount of dosh when Obama took over and it’s now a much huger amount, which obviously can’t ever be repaid, so we’re all bankrupt forever. I think they should let Romney have a go at at least reducing it from whatever illions it is. Clearly Obullshitter has no intention of even trying.

    http://www.usdebtclock.org/

    So – today’s the day. Bring it on, you Septics!

  23. Personally I think Britain has always been governed by an elite. It’s just that the elite of landed aristocracy who were integral to society across the nation have been replaced by an elite of urban-located professional politicians, bureaucrats and . . . what? How does one define that class of professional busybodies who have risen through the public sector, fake charities and “causes” to become the cabal of vociferous, self-elevating, champagne socialists so bent on telling everyone else how they should lead their lives, what they can and can’t do and now even what they can and can’t write, say or think? That vanguard of liars who, with boasted good intentions and dodgy statistics, have so undermined our freedoms and liberty, our individualism and our true diversity.

    On to this rather top-heavy and mainly unpleasant elite have been grafted the extra burdens of European government – which also consists of all three types – and an “enhanced” tier of local government which has flexed muscle in recent years from just providing necessary civic services and waffling in town halls to jumping on the nanny bandwagon in order to control what people do and to disseminate largely socialist – “communitarian” – propaganda. We live in “communities” but from the bumf churned out they apparently consist entirely of “vulnerable” minorities, often alien to what once passed as the average or norm and who still exist and struggle, silently.

    Of course this heavyweight deluge of government control and propaganda needs an extortionate amount of tax and borrowing in order to fund all those jobs and schemes and “initiatives”. And when things are tight and “the money is all gone” one can hardly expect the turkeys to vote for Christmas. So instead there is yet more sleight of hand on the abacus and yet more inventive methods of squeezing the blood of tax money from the stone of ordinary living without appearing to do so.

    But it doesn’t stop there. Around this monstrous construct are the clamouring media, flip-flopping between their own double standards and hypocrisy and the double standards and hypocrisy of the ruling elite, whilst worshipping the vacuousness of “celebrity” in a way that is the very definition of the mixed message. Crass yet grave. Puerile yet sanctimonious. Cruel yet mawkish. But loud, always loud and invariably in your face 24 hours in the day.

    Of the two models, ancient and modern, I think that I prefer the ancient for its rough honesty and lazier pace. There were bad eggs then but probably less greasy pole climbers, bullshit artists and chancers rising like scum to the top. There is now little evidence of any benevolent paternalism, responsibility or duty providing protection and no-one seems to know their place. Opportunities for protest, resistance and rebellion have been reduced by the ramping up of law, regulation and police powers. Tyranny and blandness beckon.

  24. Well-wisher (12:11)

    Thank you for that; an excellent essay, packed with with well-observed accurate reportage and philosophical musing. What’s more it’s a primer on how to pack a great deal of substance into less than 500 words.

    It should have a post unto itself Peter, it deserves better than to be buried under the daily scribblings on the Wall.

  26. I think that Frank has it about right. The Speccer – posters and commenters – just winds me up something rotten these days. Not worth the aggro.

  27. More food for thought from Daren Jonescu:

    http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/the_us_election_is_a_referendum_on_civilization.html

    Extract:

    >Thoughtful non-Americans know from experience and reasoning that liveable conditions in their own nations will be sustained, if at all, only as long as America refrains from following the West’s oppressive path to regulatory oblivion and resists late modernity’s craving for the false comforts of “soft despotism.” Those comforts are false on two levels: first, they are gained by means of a gun aimed at you and everyone else; second, they will be short-lived. The last gasp of freedom means the loss of all the goods that only freedom can provide — prosperity, peace, leisure.

    A man is hanging from a cliff, with only his fingers still gripping solid rock. The prevailing impetus is all downward, but the man continues to dangle in one place as long as that grip holds out. If he lets go, however, his fall will be short and decisive.

    Modern civilization is that man. America is his final, desperate grip. On November 6, 2012, that man will either be left alone to continue his brave, heartbreaking struggle for another day, or the boot will come down on his fingers.<

    But RIA; that's just a tasty spoonful of a rich and sustaining alphabet soup.

  28. Puke inducing article from;

    http://biased-bbc.com/2012/11/surprise-bbc-report-on-murder-of-british-soldier-light-on-the-details.html

    Which compares the loathsome racism of the BBC;

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20208630

    With the known facts of the British soldier’s murder in Cyprus;

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2228090/David-Lee-Collins-stabbing-3-tourists-remanded-custody-murder-British-soldier.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

    Three scumbags are described as UK Tourists and while it is legally accurate the reality which the BBC hides is that knife wielding Pakistanis and a Somali have murdered a soldier on his way to Afghanistan.

    Writing to the BBC does absolutely no good. Why won’t some politician grow a spine and cut these despicable gits down to size?

  29. I think that the so-called liberals in the USA are in a bind. If they don’t join the Hollywood mafia and the bleeding hearts voting for Obama, they will be loudly condemned as rascists. Romney could almost have been placed as the Republican candidate by the Democrats. Apart from being lack lustre, the fact that he is a Mormon is off-putting for many women, especially the goby feminists. So if I was a betting person, my money would reluctantly be on Obama.

  30. Somebody just drew my attention to a YouTube video called “Brand New Leather Jacket”.

    I wonder how many of you have seen & heard it?

  32. Herbert T 17:50 – I think I mentioned it here a couple of weeks ago. Quite amusing, if only because it will earn the disapproval of the self righteous prigocracy.

  33. Hexhamgeezer @ 17:19

    “…knife wielding Pakistanis and a Somali have murdered a soldier on his way to Afghanistan…”.

    Yes, and I wonder where the “UK tourists” were on their way to…?

  34. Well-wisher, good, solid stuff, you’re absolutely right, the gap between the governed and those in the governance has indeed widened, those in charge of the two dominant political pyramids of power have fixed the institutions of candidate selection, voting in elections, whipping in the House so well they can get away with virtually everything short of murder, the MPs have no fear of, aren’t accountable to the unwashed as they should be, their allegiance is but to the small ruling cluster of the party they are members of. Provided they get selected (with the approval of the clusters, of course), they are fine.

  35. Well, here we are! Let’s hope not too many chads will be hanging tonight, and for those who want relief from the retarded malicious Richard Bacon and his suffocating side-kick John Pienaar on Radio 5, have a listen to the indefatigable Glenn Beck here:
    http://www.theblaze.com/radio/

    Live free or die!

  36. Hexhamgeezer 17:19

    Thank you, my radar is failing me: I hadn’t even appreciated the duplicitous nature of the reporting of this tragic incident.

  37. Well-wisher 12:19

    Thoroughly enjoyed that. Your painful frustration is palpable but most here will empathise.

  38. Frank P

    Despite your valiant efforts, Benghazi has not become a factor: fantastic example of our (UK and US) media’s ability to be controlled by those they like to think they hold to account?

    I remain optimistic of a pleasant outcome, hope I am not being naive but I’ll go with Irishboy’s recommendation: Glenn Beck it is.

  39. The officially approved form of euthanasia known as the Liverpool care pathway has surfaced in the news lately. Why does it have that ludicrous – grotesque – name? You’d think that the notoriously chippy scousers would take offence at having their city named in a form of legalised murder.

    “Liverpool pathway” conjures up a hideous image of some piss-sodden alley with
    Cilla Black at the end of it, grim reaper’s scythe at the ready, intoning “You’ve had a lorra, lorra life, Chuck, and now it’s time to say cheerio…”

  40. Ghastly image, F S, and preposterous name! Instead of conjuring up one of the stirring wartime pictures such as “Flarepath”, the name has quite the opposite effect.
    Apropos Telegraph censorship: I see that comments are closed – after only a day – on the story about the supremely idiotic suggestion that Downton Abbey is to go multi-culti! Evidently Kilwillie has been got at by the leftie luvvies. AND, for a laugh, go to Radio Bloke (5 live) for last Saturday to hear Jonathan Dimbleby, of all people, whinging about a “witch-hunt” of the BBC by the (implied) right-wing media, aggrieved MPs and others, if you please!

  45. Because he is another cod-socialist in Tory clothing. I really don’t know why he joined the Tories. I don’t believe he is a Manchurian candidate – he is too shallow and stupid for that. So I suppose it was background and breeding that suggested a career in politics, don’t you know, and the majority of influential friends and backers who could help him were Tories. But his horribly fastidious and sanctimonious wetness is pure urban trendy champagne socialist. The worst aspect of it is that like many such creatures he has an arrogant expectation that his views are shared by everyone else.

    A Tory with backbone would have announced his disappointment that Romney had lost and that the USA had embarked on an unwise path under a weak leader, then settled back to enjoy the consequent media storm furore and quietly planned the bombshell of a Royal Commission into the mismanagement and political bias of the BBC. Instead of going into a blue funk at the first sign of socialist howling and outrage he ought to exult in it and take the fight to them, like Job’s warhorse:-

    “He breaketh up the earth with his hoof, he pranceth boldly, he goeth forward to meet armed men. He despiseth fear, he turneth not his back to the sword. Above him shall the quiver rattle, the spear and shield shall glitter. Chasing and raging he swalloweth the ground, neither doth he make account when the noise of the trumpet soundeth. When he heareth the trumpet he saith: Ha, ha: he smelleth the battle afar off, the encouraging of the captains, and the shouting of the army.”

    That is courage. Not getting red-faced and angry in PMQs.

  46. PfM 7th, 2012 – 10:07

    “Why would David Cameron warmly congratulate his socialist friend Barack Obama?”

    Well, a really sensible thing to do might be to tell him to get stuffed!

    On second thoughts…..

  47. “Liverpool pathway” conjures up a hideous image of some piss-sodden alley with
    Cilla Black at the end of it, grim reaper’s scythe at the ready, intoning “You’ve had a lorra, lorra life, Chuck, and now it’s time to say cheerio…”

    My brain’s been trying, and failing, to come up with something like that…well said, Frank.

  48. Peter

    The Long March Through the Institutions of The West has been re-fueled overnight. The mixture of changing demographics, counter-culture propaganda and gullibility has been totally destructive. Wishful thinking and envy – the curses of humanity. But the bills are already on way and there’s nothing in the bank.
    We just left the Last Chance Saloon and we wuz robbed!

    Politically, philosophically and culturally skid row beckons; spiritually – Dhimmitude will inexorably accelerate. Cameron has been arranging the terms of that in recent days; his endorsement this morning of his friend ‘Burr-ack’ was the sealing handshake. Given post-war history, it was all inevitable. Come 2015 the Milibrat will consolidate the already entrenched Leftist underpinning of British politics, under the heel of the unelected Eurobureau of the comintern.

    As for the ‘United States of America’ (ha!) – stand by for four years of campaigning to re-install Hill (and Bill) to the White House – and that will probably succeed, too.

  49. I have little sympathy for Mitt Romney today because I find him to be one of those ‘throw every one else under the bus’ conservatives.

    As to the horror of Obama, I am philosophical.

    Just as sometimes you have to let children make their own mistakes, so you must let childish electorates lie in their own bed.

    If Romney had won, who would be blamed for what’s coming America’s way?

    On a wider note, the victory can be put down to immigration (which the Republicans did nothing to stop). Huge swathes of Obama’s votes are for his ethnicity – nothing else.

    If you feed the crocodile of immigration, it will only get more greedy and eventually eat you out of house and home.

    Here in America, I would now welcome a break-up of the US, because people would then have a better say on who’s waltzing in.

    The same can be said for the EU. If that is broken up, nation state electorates will once again control immigration (that’s what the Brussels dictators are really terrified of).

    The mooted break-up of Spain would also work wonders: the Catalans wouldn’t want immigration, and the rest of Spain wouldn’t want the Catalans’ applicants.

    The UK, too. If Scotland gets independence, the Scots won’t want the immigration from the south. The English won’t want what the Scots don’t want.

    So there is are democratic means to ending this nightmare, but it involves pulling power from the elites and sectioning it off into smaller, more unassailable nation states (that’s what the EU was set up to stop – right?).

    It is an answer that seems unpalliatable to many, but, if you think it through, it would work. Power really would be back in the hands of the people.

    There is a way out of this mess here in America and in Europe.

  51. Sorry Jill, my comment at 11:34 was meant to follow my previous one, it is not directed at yours – which is lucid per se. 🙂

  53. No offence taken, Frank!

    I was reading the post on the power elites above this thread on the homepage, and it makes me think why Western artistic culture is so weak and vacuous, why films, TV, book, plays and so on, say so little these days and it’s because real-life is where all the epic drama is – only we are not allowed to say so in art.

    First off, there is lots of state-funded artistic activity – you will not be funded if you dare to suggest Western civilization is on the precipice. And even if you tried to suggest such a thing without state help, there are thought crimes and a coterie of mainstream media censors to decry you down as an ‘extremist’ even before you could start to highlight what is going on.

    Even that strange new James Bond film, which presents the secret services as acting in the national interest! The truth is that MI6 spends most of its time these days assisting the conniving Wahhabists in Saudi Arabia (the goon in Downing Street is giving them 100 jets so their religion can be even more peaceful).

    The true threat to the UK comes from the William Hague’s Foreign Office Camel Corps, who couldn’t wait to flog the UK down the river with 100 jets.

    The only place left to dicuss what is actually going on is the internet – and boy, are they determined to stop that.

    I note in Britain, the Leveson sham is pretending to go after journalists, but it is, in effect, going to be used by the next Labour government to censor anyone on the internet.

    By saying it would adopt Leveson’s recommendations in full, Labour is signalling it wants state control of the media so it can in effect outlaw citizen journalists – which would be classified as anyone posting here, that is, anyone who dared to have an opinion.

    Now that the Guardian has no advertising sales from the state (which Labour propped it up with) all the papers will be limited to say what Labour wants them to say and every member of the public here would state regulated.

    By the way, thanks for the Alexander Boot link. He is right. Dhimm electorates must get what they deserve. Things will have to get much worse (how terrifying is that?) before they will ever learn.

  54. Jill

    “The truth is that MI6 spends most of its time these days assisting the conniving Wahhabists in Saudi Arabia (the goon in Downing Street is giving them 100 jets so their religion can be even more peaceful). … The true threat to the UK comes from the William Hague’s Foreign Office Camel Corps, who couldn’t wait to flog the UK down the river with 100 jets.”

    Exactly!

    The inherent facility for treason has resided in the FO (and its offshoots) for many decades – nay, centuries, I guess; I suppose the ‘double agent’ syndrome and concomitant licence engenders it; the insider-outsider frisson also attracts the sexual perverts who seem to be overly represented in HM FCO and Secret Services. The closet mentalilty, I assume, and access to Arab boys’ bottoms, afforded by foreign travel in them thar parts. (I’ve heard them boasting in the media bars, when in the cups). Then again, if that’s what turns them on, why are they clamouring for ‘respectability’ and acceptance? The implicit infinite and contradictory permutations of human perversity, perhaps? Whatever.

    What remains, after last night’s suicidal electoral aberration is that our shared Anglosphere civilisation is now damaged beyond repair. It was good while it lasted, albeit sporadically bloody.

    Out with a whimper, it seems – no bang left in it?

  55. My posting about the recent elections seems to have vanished. I put it on around 2:20 and it’s gone!

  57. Labour, Levison and the Internet. Jill is absolutely right about this. By introducing fee-based regulation it will be easy to suppress citizen bloggers unless they have vested interest agenda backing and easy to shut down sites that don’t tow the party lines. The bureaucracy and red tape alone to decide what is the press and who should be governed by the regulations will be a nightmare to enact so expect a very big and crude sledgehammer.

    They have already established the mechanisms by which service providers can be bullied and leaned on to shut down sites with no legal tests for supposed wrongdoing. “Intelligence led” actions have already gone beyond judicial process in executing punitive sanctions without the need to prove beyond reasonable doubt in a court. Just as with the Spectator blacklisted commentators will be blocked with no recourse to justice or even to know what they have supposedly done wrong or been accused of. It will be like credit scoring – blacklisted dissidents will be unable to get a service provider – or any answers. All of this will be ushered in for the high profile scare mongered objectives that no-one can possibly object to – terrorism and child protection (the dog whistling for which has already begun) – whilst the consequences will extend much further and wider. It is quite deliberate.

    And anyone who think the next Labour government won’t display the same nasty authoritarianism and contempt for liberty that was so characteristic of their 1997-2010 government has another think coming. It’s the same gang and once they are in power the old guard will slither into the daylight. Instead of pre-empting this by establishing protections for the rights of the individual to express freely Cameron and Co have been busy digging the grave of liberty themselves. Let’s watch the word “phobe” creep into legislation when Labour flex their muscles again.

  58. Anne’s post was there Peter; it was a ‘told you so’ with a frown. It was where you posted Jill’s post. And you did indeed tell us so Anne.

  60. Indeed so. Did you forget to push ‘submit’, Anne? Know your’re not keen on submission, something a bit Islamist about that, eh? Perhaps you should relabel the button ‘Send’ Peter? 🙂

  62. Which US politician (I think) from the past said that when the numbers of those who benefitted from the state exceeded the numbers of those paying for the state then it was the end of democracy?

  63. “when the numbers of those who benefitted from the state exceeded the numbers of those paying for the state”

    I think it must’ve been Rip van Winkle, to let it get so far before getting upset about it.

    (or Alex Salmond?) No, wait, he’s quit happy with that, isn’t he?

  66. Peter fM, Baron’s with Tytler, the 18th century Scottish thinker who observed that the average age of the world’s great civilizations is about 200 years. They go, he said, “from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, and from dependence back into bondage.”

    Baron reckons the Republic has now firmly made a move into the dependence stage, the messiah will be left to determine how long that phase lasts. It wouldn’t have made much difference if Romney were to get elected, all he may have done is to make the dependence stage, or in the jargon of today the phase in which the entitlement culture mushrooms, more prolonged, less pronounced.

    A good summing up is also in this week’s issue of the Spectator by John O’Sullivan who essentially argues that it’s the ‘browning’ of America that played the decisive role in the election.

    I know you, Frank and others don’t see it that way, but Baron reckons the Americans have voted the way they did because, comparatively speaking, there no longer is the same hunger to succeed in America as before, not only are the the statist layers making it harder, less rewarding what with the rules, regulations, taxes, but it’s also axiomatic that after any society reaches a certain stage of material comfort the desire to create wealth becomes marginal.

  67. Peter from Maidstone

    I”m sure Frank P is right and I didn’t press ‘submit’!

  68. Frank P
    Hi Frank,

    I think you were right and I forgot to press ‘submit’

    Alas, Clive Dunn has gone to a better place, “They don’t like it up ’em”

  70. Found it, and Baron was right…

    “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship.”

    Alexander Fraser Tytler, “The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic”

  71. Jill @ 11:19 and Frank P @ 12.09

    Support for the break up of the United States is not only a proposal deeply ignorant of US history but grossly irresponsible in the context of the current world crisis in geopolitics. The United States is moving towards a South American model and there are of course some who believe that the lamentable history of South American countries is all the fault of the USA, including the period before 1776.That absurdity might ground an argument for the break-up of America into nation states.

    The parallel with the European Union is of course a nonsense if examined for more than a minute.

    I would rather that you not support the break up of my own country for a dubious single-issue gain.

    What the United States needs to do is to have large numbers of its population read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest its Constitution – and then to set about bringing it back to life, starting in my opinion with the abolition of the “Federal” “Reserve” “Bank”.

    How you do either of those things I don’t know – it suggests a cultural revolution is necessary – but certainly not by advocating civil war as a means of controlling immigration.

  72. Jill 11:19

    Enjoyed your post: made me think.

    Re-Scotland: slightly scary aspect is that, should the SNP prevail, they have already professed a bit of nightmarish approach to immigration.
    They might well block fellow-Britons but would welcome with open arms (and I suspect, other appendages) all those itinerants from countries with virtually no common heritage with the UK.

    I can hardly wait…

  73. EC – November 7th, 2012 – 20:49

    I have read Melanie’s article, and her alarming predictions. Her forecast that Obama’s actions have resulted in a situation where “Iran can now be sure that it will be able to complete its infernal construction of a genocide bomb to use against the Jews and the west” – thus leading to World War 3, is especially disturbing.

    But at the same time, it makes me ask how – if Melanie is right – can it be explained that Obama DID authorise the use of U.S. force to get rid of Osama bin Laden, and HAS authorised – and apparently is still authorising – the use of drones to kill Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan and possibly elsewhere? Those things can hardly be characterised as pro-Islam.

    Is it possible that his Administration – and a lot of other people in the west – have simply lost interest in protecting Israel, and would prefer that the Israelis look after themselves?

    Perhaps, rather than World War 3, we are going to see a mutually genocidal nuclear war between Israel and Iran? Or between Israel on the one side and the Arab Muslim world plus Pakistan on the other?

    But the really puzzling question – to my mind – is the western willingness to encourage not only Muslim expansionism (e.g. the Muslim takeover of Kosovo in Europe) but also mass Muslim immigration into the west. Those policies are suicidal. Why do westerners fail to grasp the ingrained nature of the hatred towards not just the Jews and the west, but towards all Infidels, that is instilled by Islam into its followers? Winston Churchill grasped it – as does Melanie – and so do a few present day politicians – but they are derided and abused for it. Western Establishments – and much of their populations – seem to be acting like sheep encouraging their own offspring to trot willingly into halal slaughterhouses.

  74. Thinking about the recent US elections, I considered the demographics involved. Most afro-americans, asians, latinos and many othe ethnic groups voted for Obama. The majority of Republicans were white anglo-saxons. In four years time, given the high birth rates of afro-americans and other ethnics, there will be far more Democratic supporters than there are today. Consider the picture in another eight or twelve years. The USA will, at best, resemble Brazil, with large pockets of poverty mixed with extreme weath. At worst, another Haiti will be born, with Third World levels of education, infra-structure, and a tiny population of anglos (largely white or ligh skinned) huddled together in encaves, precariously enjoying a european standard of living, whilst the majority of the population live in a fragmented society where unemployment is rife. No taxes paid to support a modern, western life-style, and a general feeling of resentment towards the better off, and complete hopelessness.

  75. And it is comming our way Anne, in fact a considerable part of the package arrived and set up camp years ago, here in Whitechapel we have an open space called Muqtab Ali Park. I do not know who in hell this indidual was, but I do know what once stood there, a small building from the 12th. century known as the White Chapel.

  76. stephen maybery
    November 8th, 2012 – 10:26
    Stephen, what confuses me is that people who flee the shite holes of the world for a better life in the West, immediately vote for the same type of rubbish that ruled the roost in their old countries. They also continue to l ive by the same sick ethos they stated they wished to escape. It’s occupation of the West by stealth.

  77. AWK –

    Your forecast is depressing, because I think that you’re right, but I have the impression that the general feeling of resentment towards the better off exists even in populations consisting mainly of Anglo-Saxons or whites – and I am thinking of Britain in particular where it often goes beyond resentment and consists of ill-will and even hatred of the better off. Indeed, in the entire English-speaking world a conspicuous example of this ill-will is seen in the widespread schadenfreude over the injustices inflicted by the U.S. justice system on Conrad, Lord Black.

    I believe that it has come about because of the collective, leftist mindset that exists in the education system, from schools to universities. The saying -“Those who can do; those who cannot, teach” is frighteningly accurate. They teach (among other poisonous ideas) that the better off are wicked.

    The only place where I have noticed an absence of resentment against the conspicuously better off – and instead seen an attitude of – “I’m going to do my best to increase MY prosperity too and be as well off as that myself” – was among Chinese people in Hong Kong.

  78. Herbert Thornton
    November 8th, 2012 – 10:54
    You are right! I have never seen such jealousy as here in Britain. The years of socialism have certainly done their work, and the nearest ciparison I can make is with the old USSR

  79. I take the liberty of posting the greater part of a newsletter received today from a commentator called Rick Ackerman whose level-headed and informed comments I have been receiving in my email for a few years now.

    “November 8, 2012

    Investors Fear More than Just a ‘Fiscal Cliff’

    The Dow plunged 313 points yesterday, but don’t believe news media reports that it was the nearness of the “fiscal cliff” that caused the selloff. What spooked investors is a bigger picture that recognizes the economically catastrophic implications of a second Obama term. To be clear, there is nothing Romney could have done to avoid the deflationary Depression that lies ahead. However, a Romney presidency might have at least served as a reality check, delaying the onslaught of hard times for perhaps long enough to allow Americans to put their financial houses in order before austerity hits with the force of an earthquake, as it has in Europe.

    We’re not going to dwell on the choice Americans made on Tuesday. Suffice it to say, the election has substantiated conservatives’ worst fear – that, sooner or later, Big Government’s clients would come to outnumber those of us who pay for the criminal extravagances of their voracious welfare state. Actually, it turns out, drones needn’t have outnumbered taxpayers, since the quirks of the electoral college have enabled them to execute a coup even though they lacked a statistically significant majority.

    Bread and Circuses

    Now, with a $16+ trillion federal deficit that is growing by more than a trillion dollars per year, the nation’s descent toward insolvency can only accelerate, further widening the gap between tax revenues and outlays. Soaking the rich, even by taxing them at 100%, would not begin to arrest the decline, but just try to tell that to those who voted for Obama. Bread and circuses will be their reward, and far be it from us to predict that they will feel unsatisfied. Rather, the opposite should hold true, since it will not have cost the 47% a dime.”

    Or, the same view from a slightly different angle, see Rush Limbaugh’s “In a Nation of Children, Santa Claus Wins”

    http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/11/07/in_a_nation_of_children_santa_claus_wins

    Where America leads, England is not far behind.

  80. Herbert Thornton on Jealousy – A Very British Socialist Construct – 100% agreed. Look at Hong Kong’s income tax rates too. Chinese much more pragmatic that some are rich, some are poor, some are clever, some are stupid, etc., and all should NOT have prizes. That idiocy has ruined us.

  82. Baron (13:36)

    I never sulk y’Lordship. I have three basic modes: (a) fuming ferociously; (b) philosophising foolishly or (c) laughing loudly (sometimes with you, sometimes at you).

    When not in any of those modes, perpetual perplexity fills the interstices, exacerbated sporadically by the cocktail of prescribed junk which is essential to my hitherto successful preoccupation of coffin dodging.

    As a matter of fact today I’ve been ruminating today over the contents of the following video link, which proked much food for thought. Bill Whittle has a one man brain-storming session, following yesterday’s watershed in the counter-culture war:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=s02SypCcYIc

    I’m trying to work out whether he should be sectioned, because the shock of Obama retaining his tenancy has unhinged him, or whether he is giving birth to an idea, which has some merit. At the moment it’s a toss-up. Discuss!

    (btw. the duration is 90 minutes or so, so you’ll probably need a cafetiere of Brazilian best to concentrate your mind; don’t be put off by the $9.99 pitch in the first twenty minutes of so – its not a Ponzi scam – it’s all part of the construction of ideas that is implicit in the dissertation. Interesting, but … well, as we’re all wondering what to do next after 5 years of war on the Obamamob (which we feckin’ lost – twice) it’s worth an hour and a half of your time, if only to help me to decide whether Whittle is madman, or a genius (remembering that most of the latter are usually accused of being the former until we start to tangibly benefit from their genius).

    Thanks to Gerard over on AD for the heads up.

  83. btw – I just realised that you may have been addressing Frank Sutton – if so, my apologies to him for jumping the gun, but perhaps we can agree he’s not the sulky type either; FOK why you would think it of me!?

  85. It seems that the prescient blog by Alexander Boots on the madness of neo-cycling may have instigated a new, sinister PC cult of cycling jihadists, led by the foul-mouthed and ill-mannered Wiggins and some other thin, bi-pedally obsessed person eminent in the newly fashionable cycling world, called Shane Sutton.
    Whilst wishing a speedy recovery to both of them, the media has already seized on these occurrences; trying and condemning motorists without evidence a precursor to changing the law.

    http://alexanderboot.com/content/it%E2%80%99s-time-we-ended-mendacious-cycling-hysteria

  86. Noa
    November 8th, 2012 – 17:27
    Sorry, but cyclists should be banned from UK roads. Not only for their own safety, but for the safety of pedestrians, motorists and all who use the road. Only when like some of the continental countries there will be dedicated cyclist areas, can cyclists take to the road. Too many arrogant cyclists try to play ‘Russian roulette’ with equally arrogant lorry drivers. Lorries seem to make a habit of speeding, and are an absolute danger to others. As a pedestrian, I am frankly terrified by cyclists who ignore traffic lights and without warning mount pavements as though it is their right,

  87. Envy, jealousy and the respective politics is purely designed to maintain a tribal inverted snobbery, a collective sneer at achievement and associated wealth.
    The most insidious part being that the target is no longer between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ but the ‘haves’ and the inevitably undeserving ‘have-mores’…however miniscule the differential. The respective ‘have-more’ meanwhile, encouraged to fertilize his own inferiority complex by sneering at the next ‘have more than me’. Its criminal.

  88. Anne

    Indeed we must resist the relentless onslaught of these arrogant carbon fibre mounted, black lycra clad, coal-scuttle helmeted wheelers dealers of the new urban fascism.
    And I find a walking pole an effective first line of defence against these ludicrously dressed pavement poltroons.

  89. Noa
    November 8th, 2012 – 19:14
    Good posting! I have a sword stick (cane), but afraid to carry it as they may arrest grandmother and give me a prison sentence.

  90. Anne.
    Pavement panzers and a spoke in the wheel. As the late lamented (but regrettably Labour supporting) Clive Dunn said.
    “They don’t like it up ’em.”

  92. Perhaps Wiggins is sulking because he has hardly had a mention since the Olympics orgy came to an end; maybe his sponsors have suggested he should mild brush with an automobile and let the media know. Whichever, he’s obviously going to start some sort of charity or campaign on the back of it. However he pumps up the publicity I’m sure he wheel benefit and already I’m tyred of seeing his bike on the box.

    I hope he got a telegram of sympathy from the Queen bearing a simple message – “F**k you, too, Wiggins!”

  96. Noa
    Thinking it iver, I have an umbrella with a sharp point end. That would serve the purpose well – shades of dear departed Jonesy.

  97. Baron
    November 8th, 2012 – 20:23
    That ‘orrible video proves that all men are equal. Chavs, black and white, all equally gross and don’t deserve to breath the Lord’s sweet air.

  98. I was going to cash in on Wiggins mania in the TdF/Olympics era by marketing stick on bushy sideboards to complete that winning look to Wiggins wannabes – ‘Wiggos” could have cleaned up if only I’d put the idea into practice at the time. I suppose I’ve missed the, er, bike now.

  99. Ah, the Franks.
    Re Wiggins. Sideburns? Out of fashion since I shaved off mine in the ’70’s. Yes, sez it all. Named after General Burns, the American Civil War General who managed to draw the battle of Antietam, despite having much more…well, everything, except nous. So competent he should have been, well, a British Ge.neral. Percival perhaps.

  101. As an ex-pat in the US I can confirm the extraordinary atmosphere here.

    Educated, professional people openly talk about states seceding.

    This is not politics as we have ever known it. It is a pure tribal dogfight: people vote for Obama because he is one of theirs.

    Just as the UK has a white indigene stabbed in Cyprus by non-indigenous UK citizens and its mainstream media spitefully bury the facts, so America is beset with whites being attacked because of their ethncity and only the most extreme cases will ever creep into the headlines, and even then it’s cursory.

    There is history in the making, but it’s no mainstream media history.

    I have never known anything like it.

  102. Frank P @ 16.17

    Thanks for the Bill Whittle link.

    “Discuss” Ok, I thought I would try jotting down reactions as I watched and they are posted raw below:

    Romney certainly comes across as virtuous.

    The extension of the idea of the non-virtuous to those who unecessarily survive on entitlements is very relevant to England and indeed to the immigration problem- and to the EU problem – entitlements in exchange for the surrender of freedom and the compounding of the problem by government offering entitlements for political loyalty.. Does England have a similar division? It doesn’t seem so clear cut here, where the Coalition contains a not insignificant percentage of the “non-virtuous’ in Mr. Whittle’s sense.

    “An unwillingness to face evil” – isn’t that the truth! Among the relativists of course there is no such thing to be faced as we are all entitled to our values, so one man’s values are as good as another’s, so who is to say the evil man is evil; he just has his own way of looking at the world.

    Good to see someone actually trying to think in public – and so rare!

    Yes, the politicians are buying constituencies. Nothing new here, but no less true for that. Neathergate and the failure of the editor of the Spectator to discuss it is an example of a constituency in England which has been bought and sold.

    Yes, the non-virtuous are raiding the pot of cultural, spiritual and material wealth built up by the virtuous. Well put!

    Whittle is asking the old question now, as Lenin put it in the title of his pamphlet: “What is to be done?”. He is now paraphrasing Margaret Thatcher; eventually socialists run out of other people’s money. The bizarrely-named Federal Reserve Bank of the USA however is able to postpone the impact of this by printing or digitalizing money.

    he now makes the point tht of course people who cannot survive without government help should receive it. This again is a sound principle, perhaps summed up in the maxim from someone or other: “from each according to his ability to each according to his need”. I don’t see that a conservative has any quarrel with that, so long as his terms are rigorously defined – I don’t “need’ that fourth hamburger…The safety net versus the safety hammock as Whittle then expresses essentially the same thought. “If you put down enough food you get fat squirrels”!

    “The number of virtuous people gets smaller and smaller and smaller, because – virtue has to be taught to people”

    (About 18 minutes in)

    And here I have to take my first coffee break – tea actually – which may go on for some time.

  103. Canadian in-laws have quaint terms for the cycling fascists there (who, in complete contrast to the population at large) are just as Bolshie and stroppy as our home grown varieties. They are known as the Spandex Ballet and for my part I introduced them to the term Lycra Louts! On another subject, I see that the Telegraph is running something called BBC Question Time Live! They really should call that newspaper The Profitable Guardian!

  104. Cameron commented, in that Schofield debate:

    “I think Phillip this is really important. There is a danger if we are not careful, that this can turn into a sort of witch-hunt, particularly against people who are gay.”

    Does he mean that homosexual nonces should be treated differently from heterosexual child molesters?

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2229808/Phillip-Schofield-ambushes-David-Cameron-Tory-paedophile-list-No-10-condemns-trial-Twitter.html#ixzz2BftXncsV
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

  107. I read Melanie Phillips’ analysis of the re-election of Obama and she touches on a basic of why Romney couldn’t win and why Cameron couldn’t win and won’t win.

    I’ll put it more bluntly than she does: conservative people expect conservative politicians to reverse the damage and to protect them. They will not do that.

    The only thing they serve is corporate interest, which they try to dress up as national interest and they pull up the drawbridge to everyone else and say – your kids can get attacked, we need cheap labour, leave us alone behind our electric gates.

    Socially conservative people have had enough of this. But the GOP and the Conservative Party will not listen.

    I read an absolutely vile piece of propaganda defending all this the other week on the Smelly Telegraph, written by arabist groveller Peter O’bore.

    As with all the grossest untruths and distortions on the Telegraph, there were no comments allowed underneath the piece to correct the writer.

    The comment pages are the first place people are usually allowed to make comments, but not here. No prizes for guessing why. Reading this drivel, one can see exactly what the readership would think of it:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9637490/Cameron-should-beware-the-Australian-master-strategist.html

    That’s the other thing I hope we’ll see in the US. A massive break-up of the GOP.

    And the sooner Britain is rid of the Conservative Party, the better over there too.

    By the way, I see the creepy Barclay twins have deleted all of Melanie Phillips’ archive from The Spectator’s crummy website. It’s gone the way of Neathergate. It’s like a Stasi propaganda publication ‘Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.’

    Another part of the vile offshore elite, the Barclays – laughing at the Third World cesspit on the mainland.

  108. @Noa 8th, 2012 – 23:04

    “Cameron commented, in that Schofield debate:”

    OK, it wasn’t the best of answers. I’d have liked to see him really stick it to that tw*t Schofield, making it clear that he was totally out of order but…he was thinking hard, (so hard he’d had to stop chewing his gum!) selecting his words carefully, keeping the temperature of the debate down so that they could politely move on to other subjects afterwards. At least he was aware of the potential legal problems, which is more that Schofield or his producer were.
    Btw…why is he not yet on the dole?

  110. I have not seen the Phillip Schofield footage, but in my view, he was absolutely right to do what he did. The names were written down so they did not have to be uttered on air.

    Cameron said to Schofield, go to the police. What for?

    The police were given the names for the Wrexham inquiry and then told the victims: ‘No, not those names. Only the names we let you say can go into your witness statement.’

    Thus, when the statement was presented to the inquiry, it has a veneer of being public and transparent, when the opposite was true.

    That’s how these so-called public enquiries are manipulated. You don’t get a free hand to have your say.

    You’re manipulated by being limited to what the establishment wants you to say.

    And the way Cameron whined about a gay witch hunt! That defence was what gave these ghastly people the confidence to do what they did.

    They were hiding behind political correctness, for heaven’s sake.

    Melanie Phillips even wrote the other week:

    “In case after case over the years, the authorities turned a blind eye to the systematic sexual abuse of children in care homes, principally through the terror of being labelled ‘homophobic’.”

    Exactly.

    And that’s the way Mr Slippery works.

    http://melaniephillips.com/the-real-lesson-of-the-jimmy-savile-scandal

    If you want to see who BBC Newsnight were supposed to name, it’s here:

    http://pebpr.blogspot.co.uk/

  111. Anne Wotana Kaye 1, November 8th, 2012 – 20:39

    The umbrella can be a really effective weapon, and was frequently wielded to great effect and with great panache by John Steed in The Avengers. They can be lethal too – ask Georgi Markov.

    Frank P @16:17,

    I watched that Bill Whittle video – stream of consciousness thing – last night too. He still seemed to be in a state of shock. I decided that the best remedy for my post election angst was to splash out on a (more expensive than normal) bottle of quality Bordeaux red. Happy to report that it worked a treat. 🙂

    Frank Sutton @20:12

    Do you carry an organ donor card? (ref. Boot’s blogs passim)

  113. Ostrich

    Antietam a draw? Yes, at least tactically, but General Burnside (not Burns, dodgy memory banks these days) wasn’t in charge that day, just of the bit he messed up. As opposed to his clear fluster clucks at Fredricksburg and the Battle of the Crater.

    Check out that Bradley Wiggins look:-

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Burnside

    And I rather think Cameron’s essentially divisive answer exacerbated, rather than palliated the situation.

  114. Frank P (November 8th, 2012 – 16:17 – re Bill Whittle) –

    “I’m trying to work out whether he should be sectioned, because the shock of Obama retaining his tenancy has unhinged him, or whether he is giving birth to an idea, which has some merit. At the moment it’s a toss-up.”

    Agreed!

    But his ‘Titanic’ theory – i.e. that the American government has become so enormous that it has an unstoppable momentum towards disaster – has powerful plausibility. And so does his theory that its collapse will be sudden. There is certainly a strong precedent for it in the startling collapse of the Soviet Union, where the government was an even bigger component of the state.

    It makes me imagine it happening in Britain and other western European countries too, maybe beginning with Greece – though the consequences will be worse in western Europe and in Britain in particular Britain because ‘virtue’ – but of a very different kind, i.e. ‘virtue’ in the Islamic sense of the word – is already entrenched in a substantial and rapidly growing part of the population.

    If (when?) America collapses on the other hand I suspect that the consequences will resemble those that followed in Germany after the effective end of the Weimar Republic in 1933. In the worst case the U.S. will be led by a new Hitler (though even that will not be as bloody as would be a new Ayatollah or Mullah of some sort). If the U.S. is lucky maybe a new Dr Salazar or failing that, a new General Franco will emerge.

  116. Jack @ 23.32pm Well said.

    What politician will ever have the courage to call for a study of the possible correlation between homosexuality and child molestation?

  118. And addendum E clearly shows where Cardinal O’Brien, Stonewall’s current “Bigot of the Year 2012”, stands, and why.

  119. Frank P and Herbert Thornton

    I’m making slow progress compared with HT. Too may interruptions. Here’s another slice, taking up where I left off:

    New York and Hollywood people – their entire lives are devoted to “Orgies in hot tubs and all the cocaine they can do”. They know they have no virtue. Peer pressure from the non-virtuous. The non-virtuous “are not evil, but utterly lost. No guidelines”. They are determined to destroy virtue because it makes them look bad. But surely virtue would give them guidelines, so Whittle can’t say they have no guidelines if virtue still exists and the “lost” are out to destroy it. So why do the “lost” reject the guidelines offered by existing virtue? No immediate pleasure return perhaps – or not a pleasure immediately recognisable as pleasure and sometimes of course a pain. Residual conscience.

    An active effort has been made to destroy virtue in the schools and the larger culture. There seems to be evidence to make that case in England. Or it may just be a question of the road to hell being paved with good intentions.

    The cadre of the progressives are doing it to destroy America, but not the foot soldiers.The foot soldiers just want a life without constraints. The effect though is the intentional destruction of America’s fundamental values.

    People voted for a man whose policy will bankrupt the country. This is Obama as Gordon Brown, who at the same time it will be remembered as he told us that he had a moral compass, called Mrs. Duffy a bigot. Makes me think of Eliot “Between the idea And the reality Between the motion
    And the act Falls the Shadow”. 50,000,000 – pretty much half the country voted to bankrupt it.

    That’s the end of Whittle’s preamble; can’t fault much so far. Now comes his plan (24 minutes in); but I have to take another break.

  120. Hexhamgeeser @ 00.42

    Right! Or as Rush Limbaugh put it, children don’t vote against Santa Claus.

  121. Where’s Austin Barry; a comment about the lycra clad Wiggins a few weeks ago almost did for me as I choked on my morning coffee; now I can’t locate it, sadly. Austin where art thou?

  122. Malfleur

    Keep the Whittle fisking going, I’m enjoying it almost as much as the vid. Excellent! I’ve stood down the men in white coats pro tem – and the DAO, too.

    Poor bastard does look shot, though, doesn’t he? I would be the same if I hadn’t read the runes weeks ago; I’m surprised he is that shocked. But then again, we’ve already been trampled by the Long March here for almost half a century, so we’re ahead of the game.

    I must say that even I got a spasm of optimism when the Benghazi fiasco broke; but the MSM proved more than capable of burying that, particularly under the cover of the Frankenstorm – and Romney chickened out, anyway.

    The fat fuck Chris Christie, in an attempt to pick Obama’s pocket and save his own fat ass, really put the final kibosh on Romney’s already slim chances though, imho. I hope the starving residents of the Jersey Shore barbecue him in an orgy of cannibalism. A few hundred Noo Joisey broads could feed off the steaks for a week; and the lard drainage could be refined for auto fuel to cut down the queues at the gas stations.

    Looks as though Hillary is going under the bus and that the Heinz gigolo is getting her job, so Hill will be the patsy for the Benghazi show when the Congressional Hearing fillets the documentation that has been leaked by the military and the CIA. The next few weeks should provide some good copy, one way and another … but in general, Whittle is probably right, the only way to survive this is to construct a parallel universe and ignore the bastards. Back to the barter system.

  124. “Whittle is probably right, the only way to survive this is to construct a parallel universe and ignore the bastards. Back to the barter system.”

    That’s why “they” will attempt to do away with cash money. When money becomes 100% electronic then the state will have 100% control over you.

  125. Anybody tried bartering with a plumber? They’re the modern equivalent of Dick Turpin – without a mask. At least dentists have the decency to wear mask whilst emptying your wallet/bank account.

  126. Frank P. Nov 9 – 02.35

    Still around, Frank, but busy at work before retiring at Christmas – a seasonal gift to all those thrusting young guns who keep sticking ‘do not resuscitate’ signs on my office door. I’d better leave before they start drawing chalk outlines round my chair.

    Still enjoying your thoughtful and robust posts here, along with those of the other regular and indeed new contributors.

  127. That’s why “they” will attempt to do away with cash money. When money becomes 100% electronic then the state will have 100% control over you.

    Actually, Christian groups have been saying this for decades. It always seemed kind of crazy talk. But the basics were spot on.

  128. Don’t underestimate the power of hard currency. if the state go electronic then Stirling will have no benchmark value, something else, be it gold or be it cigarettes, will take over and the harder HMRC try to crack down (prohibition) the more valuable it will become.

  129. I am astonished that young people (and, for that matter, so many old people) do nit understand why they should avoid electronic money as much as is practically possible.

    It’s all about state control. And the state is deeply embedded in too big to jail institutions such as many banks.

    There’s a quid pr quo. The state goes easy on bank malfeasance, the bank delivers us all to the state with de facto electronic tags.

    Many people are as good as electronically tagged now, connecting information from various state records along with consumer records (eg, loyalty cards, which are in essence corporate spying – the information is sold back to the state) and putting that all through some algorithms and the state can work out a whole lot more about people than they imagine.

    As for phone ‘apps’ being for your convenience – it’s for their convenience, the state and its corporate spies.

    ‘But you get a small discount if you do it this way.’

    And why would that be, Jerk?

  130. EC
    November 8th, 2012 – 23:35
    Hi, EC
    A drop of poison, or a strong laxative inserted in the brolly, and that should fix the wheelie brigade!

  132. EC @ 06:27 and Peter from Maidstone @ 09:05

    And so buy gold – gold coins (Krugerrands, American Eagles – does the Royal Mint in England still offer coins?) , 1/10th of an ounce – good for buying groceries in a crisis when the ATMs are shut. After all, the central banks are buying gold,so…

  133. Frank P

    “Where’s Austin Barry; a comment about the lycra clad Wiggins a few weeks ago almost did for me as I choked on my morning coffee;…..”

    Yes Frank, I was trying to remember what Austin had written…whatever it was was mordant and spot on, as usual.
    Still, at least we were spared this fescennine suppository being knighted. How close a call was that, one wonders, given the summer’s Olympian hysterics?
    His equivalent of the Royal wave, captured in the Mail below, amply demonstrates our loss.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2229533/Bradley-Wiggins-released-hospital-crash-wife-Catherine-confronted-woman-driver.html

  135. So, does anyone know if Wiggins actually had lights on his bike? There are no lights on any of the bikes he is shown on in the various press reports.

    Cyclists are rapidly becoming another PC protected “victim” group that can do no wrong. The way they ride on pavements, fail to use lights, ignore traffic signs, weave in and out of traffic lanes, hold onto vehicles and swear at pedestrians that “get in their way” pisses me off. And the worst are always the lycra-clad, dickhead helmet wearing Tour de France wannabes who think they own the roads.

  136. Scroll down on that above link to see what happened with Blair vis-a-vis his trip to Bow Street Magistrates’ Court.

  137. Frank P #@ 03:21

    Whittle looks shot, but only because he is lit from below – his PC screen? Lighting from below is the classic way in Grand guignol of making people look spooky and back from the dead.

    Continuing with the Whittle piece and raw comment on what he says:

    24 minutes into Whittle’s spiel: there’s still 150,000,000 people in the States “who get it”. The Titanic analogy – government is too big to be steered any more. Education system infiltrated by unions snf too big to be changed.It took 50 years to destroy public education in the States; it would take another 50 years to restore it.

    So how do you get the bastards out of your country?

    Build parallel structures “and you have to bear an additional burden to do it” (this is good! – horizontal instead of vertical was my idea a couple or so years back). I think he is on to something here. Don’t refer up the line to the government at the top; work in civil society to structure an alternative structure – which in my view should extend horizontally, as for instance this site does – but then you have to find a way to connect it to similar networks around the country,no?

    Whittle takes an example. NASA. the peak of human achievement when Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969 and now pointless and too big to manage or achieve anything further. The alternative? First, obey the law or the state will crush you. So if you want America do continue to do, for example, what NASA was doing but “ceded to an incompetent and utterly corrupt government” set up a not for profit company donations to which are tax deductible and for masses of people to contribute a small amount each month ( a bit like Peter from Maidstone’s proposal for financing The Coffee House Wall, but on a grander scale – space exploration). $10 bucks a month for three years volunteered by 10 million Americans, say,you have a space programme financed. A free business which keeps you satisfied to pay that $10 bucks a month. It will finance space research outside government and with astronauts not risk averse dying to see the programme succeed but also by lottery providing an orbital ride for investors. “You’re not fighting City Hall; you’re just ignoring City Hall!!”

    Actually, I think even the “non-virtuous” could be persuaded to this scheme – think hot tub orgies in orbit…

    “The way you beat these swine who have taken over our country” is for voluntarily funded structures parallel to government, so that you have to be prepared to pay for them twice (here’s the additional burden you have to bear) but you pull the financial plug on the parallel structure if it is not peforming.

    This concept works not just for a parallel NASDA but for education, etc., etc. You have to write off your tax payments going to government, but your voluntary payments are not going to the parasites.

    Whittle then elaborates on how this system would work to finance a private, excellent education system outside government. essentially I think this is similar to Peter from Maidstone’s idea when we broke away from the Spectator’s CH for financing this site and its extension as a parallel structure to the political class.

    In a phrase: People Power!

    How do you actully implement this”

    (Tea break – lengthy – about 45 minutes in – http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=s02SypCcYIc)

    WShat is the end result of this kind of plan?

  138. Please, if you haven’t already, click into Alexander Boot’s latest blog-post; for the busy or idle, here it is:

    http://alexanderboot.com/content/what-election-says-about-us-and-about-us

    In it he seems to summarise and encapsulate, in one succinct piece, what most of the renegades here have been howling into the cybersphere in snatches for what now seems a lifetime.

    He apparently has, however, no solution to the decline of The West. Something will have to ‘turn up’ – but I do strongly infer from his essay, that the cleansing purgative of another World War lurks in the back of his mind. Given our (the West’s) current state of readiness, we would probably lose that, which is probably why he is less than explicit in that regard.

    Perhaps he and Bill Whittle should get together and work something out. Looks like our government will be otherwise engaged fighting a rearguard action (ha!) against the cocktail (ha! again) of true and false allegations about the proclivities of past and present members of their party, including some of the more exalted ones, while at the same time placating the weasel words of the likes of Tatchell who never miss an opportunity to separate the divisions of debauchery by age – even if means lowering the age of consent to uterine existence.

  139. Indeed, Frank P.

    Nothing lasts forever.

    I see the river Tiber before me here in the US, in Europe and elsewhere, but I have no idea if good will triumph over evil. Let’s be honest, it’s not looking good.

    What makes it so sickening is how much of it is down to treason. It’s one of those crimes that used to be taken seriously. This is perhaps the first era when it hasn’t and there lies so many of the West’s ills.

    Even to get into a position of power, you must prove your treachery.

    I see the UK’s elected police commissioners are no such thing, but must in fact pass a Common Purpose-style vetting process before they can even be shortlisted for the ballot.

    It’s another part of the West’s sham democracy: you’ll have the ‘choice’ the Common Purposers give you.

  140. Malfleur (13.01)

    As you quote PfM’s method of funding this blog, he might give us an indication of whether a similar system to fund a trip to the moon or set-up a parallel Eton or St Pauls, etc. might work? I fear his reply might be discouraging. 🙂

  142. A petty observation given the mire in which we are all but submerged, and not withstanding that all here know how the Lefties sap everything they touch of beauty, real visceral, human feeling, but our incredible language has been a bloody casualty, and I hope that someone here might offer me good legal advice if, despite having grown up in Belfast during the 1970s and managing never to throw a punch then, I perform murder on the next person to use, in that especially sanctimonious tone they reserve for its use, the word INAPPROPRIATE!

  143. Frank P, re: Mr Boot. This is one problem I have describing our wide ranging conversations. I promise that when I next see him I will ask him some straightforward questions and report them. But although he absolutely, as far as I am concerned, pinpoints how we got here, he does not have a strategy for escaping our manifest destiny. And that is no criticism of him at all. I don’t think any of us have an answer. It is easy for the socialists. They want more of the same.

    My own view as a Christian is that there is a need for national repentance. But I don’t know what that means or how it is organised. It may well need a descent into something awful. We are in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. We have wasted our father’s goods and spent our inheritance and now we find ourselves in a pig sty, eyeing the pig slop with envy. In the parable it was necessary for the prodigal to realise what he had become. It seems likely that we have not yet reached such a state of desperation.

  144. Hears this morning that there are some eighty thousand illegals which are unaccounted for and as the government can not locate them they may be accorded rights of residence, which begs the question of why they were admitted in the first place. After WWII Stalinn cleard 400K Japanese out of Sakhalin taking 4 days to do so. If Stalin could achieve that why could we not do the same? Or is it that the powers that be do not want to halt the dilution of our civilisation. Is it too much to say that the behaviour of the bastards is inappropriate!

  145. Frank P, and Malfleur, I do think, and have said before, that it is necessary to set up entirely parallel organisations and structures. The state is wicked and it is everywhere. As Mr. Boot says, it is a moral issue we face.

    This does require alternative funding and ways of working. But they are hard to get established. I am very grateful for the support of a few readers and posters on this site. As a poor person it does make a difference. But it is not the sort of level of funding that would allow something significant to happen. You know I’ve mentioned having an alternative samizdat type of news site, and having an alternative polling organisation. These could all be funded in the way that Malfleur describes, but it seems difficult/impossible to ever get such a thing established with no funding.

    I am developing a Christian online educational ministry, and that is sort of funding itself and growing slowly. But that is also not a proper income. It would seem to be necessary to quickly gain 1,000 supporters willing to pay £5 or £10 a month to establish something. How is this done for anything that is not trivial and socialist?

    Why is it so hard to organise conservatives? I did ask Mr. Boot this.

  146. Peter.

    “I next see him I will ask him some straightforward questions and report them.”

    That’s after the promised report of the last meeting, I hope? Not so much the Chatham House rules here, more the the the Frasier Nelson Neathergate rules. 🙂 Just sayin’

    Only kidding – know you’re busy, but we’re still all agog….

    Btw, I’m not so much drawing a ‘prodigal son’ message from Alex’s last post; I got the distinct rumble from him of of a war of attrition on the horizon. Benghazi being just a straw in the wind.

    And I’m still looking for a sign of a useful Master Plan from y’Man upstairs. Any game plan, even a divine one, that leaves Obama in the driving seat means I’m off the bleeding ‘bus.

    Whether what would work instead is Whittle’s solution of disdainful ‘cutting’ of the powers that be (who will still continue to feed their voracious appetites and ideologies by extortionate tax) – in other words, cocking a snoot and pretending they’re not there – is something I’m still mulling over in my mind – with the help of Malfleur, who is stalwartly fisking and filleting the Whittle Way between coffee breaks.

    A more sanguine approach to Obama’s evil gerrymandering is posited by Occulus, over on AD, in a response to Whittle’s video:

    http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/american_studies/american_digest_comment_o_1.php

    So while some would turn the other cheek – others are for the worm turning, growing balls and teeth, donning hobnail boots and kicking ass big-time.

  147. Frank P, its not Neathergate. Its more like I had gone to visit you to ask some questions, but within minutes you had gone beyond the bounds of interviewer/interviewee and were having a frank and very honest conversation. I am not sure what was part of the interview and what was a personal conversation. That is my dilemma.

    So I am writing something and will ask Mr. Boot if he is happy with it.

  148. What are we willing to give up to establish a parallel structure to the state?

    How complicit are we all?

    If I watch the BBC and pay the Licence Fee because it is comfortable to do so then am I part of a parallel structure or just complaining about a few bits of a rotten system that particularly affect me?

    Another thing that alternative energies could fund and produce are decent TV programmes. But it is easier to complain than do something. In my other life I tend to organise things if there is not available whatever I want. So I am working on a Day Conference on Christian Archaelogy, and long term planning a major international conference on the same subject with a book of papers published. If you want it you often have to organise it yourself. I wanted to learn Syriac so I organised classes in London, and then I wanted to learn another ancient Christian language, so I organised classes for that as well. Small things, or big things in a small pond, are all possible. It is getting wider networks established which is difficult. I don’t know how to do that cheap.

  149. IRISHBOY
    November 9th, 2012 – 14:26
    INAPPROPRIATE is one of the ‘buzz’ words which make me want to reach for a revolver. Add it to ‘robust, transparent’ and all the other PC shite. Now the PC Plonkers are screeching for CLARITY!

  150. stephen, ‘lost in the system’ is a smokescreen.

    It is all quite deliberate and in fact the current system was fine-tuned by a Common Purposer, whose reward for devising this system (this is not sarcasm, the system is deliberately sabotaged) was a role at HMRC.

    The bureaucracy is working to bring about the ‘change’ that Common Purposers so love (ie, ethnicide of indigenous whites).

    She didn’t need to hang around at the border agency. Job done. System perfect as far as CP is concerned.

  151. ..And another thing. How I loathe that sloppy way of acknowledging a person’s stance or point of view. “I know where you’re coming from”. What a lazy and pointless expression. An insult to the rich and eloquent English language.

  152. Irishboy and AWK – Can I add unacceptable and unhelpful to your litany of sanctimonious words. Like inappropriate, they are used in a bid to claim moral superiority while expressing nothing more profound than dislike.

    Inappropriate seems to have been completely divorced from its meaning – there are many occasions when a forthright and forceful response would be entirely appropriate.

  153. AWK – 16.46

    I don’t want to drive you, others or myself mad, but top of the list of other gruesome gobs of PC language must be:
    “lessons will be learned”

    And I hear as I write the new Archbish. displaying his consensual credentials by talking about “social justice” (a contradiction in terms) and “going forward”!! UGH! From whence do such phrases come from? And how come that they so quickly become part of Lefty argot?

  154. And Frank S, before I scream, shall we add to the list the word “regret”. I mean we wouldn’t want to commit ourselves to any value judgement upon our own behaviour by using a word as active as sorry, rather we find it easier to imply a inadequacy on the victim’s part that they should have been hurt in some way, so we’ll sympathise with that alone and actually admit no personal fault.
    The term Passive Aggressive was coined for these slippery weasels.

  155. Frank Sutton
    November 9th, 2012 – 17:41
    and
    IRISHBOY
    November 9th, 2012 – 17:44
    I am gob smacked !!!!! Bring out the revolvers!

  156. Irishboy: The vocabulary of perverted language is large and growing, so the definitive list will never be complete. George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language is still timely, even without a few updates – the word fascist is still used to mean nothing more specific than a person it’s ok to hate.
    This language seems to spread like a virus – why do so many people say Beijing and Mumbai, why has union flag nearly replaced Union Jack?

  157. So you Limeys got the black socialist you all craved.
    Now we are going to fritter all hard earned money on the lame and lazy.
    And the Dollar will go down the tube.
    What a shame.
    I am hoping it was all a bad dream and I wake up to an American President.

  158. The Tuesday result is a tragedy, for America and for the world. Firstly, because Obama has been a dreadful president; second, because Romney would have been a good one, despite the fact that, though his campaign had a late surge, it didn’t quite have the cutting edge it should have had.

    The other reason Romney lost was that he took the stragic decision, in order to mount a positive and optimistic campaign, not to make the Benghazigate cover-up an election issue; and that Obama’s steadfast refusal to respond to the growing evidence of this mounting scandal was supported by the equally scandalous failure of most of the American media to report it.

    But not everyone failed to report it: enough was in the public domain for Romney, if he had kept his nerve, to have mounted an indictment powerful enough to make Obama unelectable, as unelectable as Nixon would have been if the Watergate cover-up had emerged in time (in other words actually during his re-election campaign rather than some time later

    The general lines of the scandal are clear enough. Firstly, there was the fact that intelligence immediately indicated that the US consulate in Benghazi was destroyed in a planned terrorist attack, not as the result of a “spontaneous” protest triggered by a YouTube video. This, however, is what the Obama administration, including President Obama, repeated obsessively for weeks, knowing it to be untrue.
    The greatest scandal, however, is that the murdered American ambassador Stevens, who had repeatedly asked for more security — a request which was repeatedly refused because it was “unnecessary” (after all, hadn’t the President killed Osama bin Laden with his own bare hands, thus defeating al-Qaeda and all other terrorism?) — had made it quite clear that terrorism was still a major threat in Libya, however politically inconvenient this might be, and that he was himself in danger. Knowing this, the administration did nothing to protect him.

    Now we know we need to get a head of steam to get Obama out as sure as Nixon got out.

  159. If it was not enough that we are led by a toad you are all led by a skunk

    I see the New Statesman has labeled Merkel “the most dangerous German leader since Hitler” — presumably including the brutal East German dictators under whose repressive rule she grew up — but also declared her a greater risk to world stability than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Un. Elsewhere she has been depicted as a bully, a latter-day Nero who fiddles while Europe burns and, on the cover of the Spanish magazine El Jueves, a sadomasochistic dominatrix whipping Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy into submission.

    Furthermore the economic Guru has his sights on her. When George Soros talks about European currencies, it’s worth listening. In 1992,he made more than $1 billion by betting against your pound’s being able to maintain its exchange rate with the German mark. In June , as European Union leaders prepared to gather for yet another crisis summit to address their mounting economic and financial woes, Soros again had a strong message to send. But this time it was political, and it was aimed at German Chancellor Angela Merkel. If she continued to be unbending in her economic demands on the rest of Europe, Soros told the newsmagazine Der Spiegel, “The result will be a Europe in which Germany is seen as an imperial power that will not be loved and admired by the rest of Europe — but hated and resisted, because it will be perceived as an oppressive power.”

  161. I have to say I am astonished to read from across the Pond, the retraction of Stephen Meesham.

    We are told to believe – in an era of Google image searches – that he has never, until today, seen a photo of Lord McAlpine.

    I just hope it all is a case of ‘mistaken identity’.

    It would be horrible if the original threat of ‘if you tell anyone, I’ll kill you’ has led to an offer by MI5 to Mr Meesham that, as Mario Puzo might phrase it, Mr Meesham ‘found impossible to refuse’.

    If those allegations about MI5 procuring boys are true, you can bet the Establishment will fight tooth and nail, and close ranks very quickly.

    Let’s hope it is all a case of mistaken identity.

    Albeit a very unusual one.

  162. JJ Burns
    “..So you Limeys got the black socialist you all craved”.

    There’s no point in coming whining over here to us about Obama, he has no fans in this part of the cyber-system. Try the marxist trans-gender crew at the New Statesman if you want some sado-masochistic gloating.

  163. Noa.
    I did try the New Statesman but they are hung up on National Socialists rather than Socialists-see above

  164. General Petraeus – under a ‘bus … because he was OTS?? Very fucking convenient if you don’t mind me sayin’ so. We’ll wait for developments. If there’s not at least blackmail involved, my hat will serve for breakfast.

  167. Fancy that!

    Breaking News ‏@BreakingNews
    “Senate Intelligence Committee says Petraeus will not testify at next week’s closed hearing on the events in Benghazi”

    Rupert Murdoch ‏@rupertmurdoch
    “Petraeus resignation. Timing, everything suspicious. There has to be more to this story.”

  168. The “McAlpine not a paedo” debacle was reported on Radio 4 news just now with many references to his having first been named on the internet… something which won’t be lost on those seeking to control, license and in fact stifle the blogosphere.

  169. CV of Paula D Broadwell: the paramour of the ex-CIA boss, General David Petraeous.

    Paula D Broadwell

    Email address: paula.broadwell@kcl.ac.uk
    Research Interests

    Military Leadership
    Organizational and Management Theories
    U.S. Foreign, Defense, and Intelligence Policy
    Biography

    PhD Research Associate, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government
    U.S. National Security Education Program Boren Fellow (for Arabic Studies at the University of Jordan in Amman, Jordan)
    Master of Public Administration, Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government
    Master of Arts in International Security and Certificate in Conflict Resolution, University of Denver, Korbel School of International Studies
    Bachelor of Science, Systems Engineering and Political Geography, United States Military Academy at West Point
    Executive Board Member, Women in International Security; Carolinas Freedom Foundation
    Governing Council Member, International Security anbd Arms Conrol Committe of the International Studies Association
    U.S. Army reservist with 13 years of interagency and international counter-terrorism experience
    Extensive work, research, and travel in nearly 70 countries
    Published articles and participated in public speaking engagements with Fox News, CNBC, National Public Radio, Canadian Public Radio, British Broadcasting Company, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, U.S. News and World Report, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Denver Post, the Stanley Foundation Report Series, Harvard Defense Leadership Project, and the Tufts University Jebsen Center for Counter-Terrorism Studies
    Current research

    Paula is conducting a study in military innovation. Her work challenges existing theories which emphasize top-down transformations by examining the roles of bottom-up catalytsts and mid-level military mavericks in galvanizing institutional innovation, particularly in unconventional warfare and counterinsurgency operations. In addition to exploring the history of U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine, her research examines the role of one individual who often receives credit for the U.S. defense innovation in the “new counterinsurgency era,” General David Petraeus. By exploring Petraeus’s “intellectual biography,” her research illustrates the origins of his beliefs in population-centric counterinsurgency warfare and American grand strategy -> WAR STUDIESCURRENT STUDENTS & STAFFABOUTEMPLOYABILITYSTUDYRESEARCH
    PEOPLEPeople A-ZEmeritus ProfessorsProfessorsReadersLecturersResearchersTeaching FellowsProfessional ServicesVisiting staff
    PhD StudentsOnline programme staffAlumniNEWS & EVENTSIMPACTCONTACT
    TwitterFacebookDigg

    Seems she tested to destruction his staying power in a tight hole.

    The FBI ‘discovered the affair when they were looking into somebody else’.

    Ha! It will be eggs for breakfast then, not my hat. (see 20:30)

  170. Nota bene:

    ” Her work challenges existing theories which emphasize top-down transformations by examining the roles of bottom-up catalytsts and mid-level military mavericks in galvanizing institutional innovation, particularly in unconventional warfare and counterinsurgency operations.”

    Yes, Indeed!

  171. Frank P – 1.18

    Less a CV, more a script for “Carry on up yer Catalyst!”

    At least America still has fearless counter-consensus warriors. Or journalists as we used to call them. Though the Left are so twisted and dangerous that Glenn Beck has ex-seals protecting him, and I don’t mean ones retired from balancing balls on their noses.

  173. Where would we be if Captain Kirk had had to resign every time he got his leg over?
    Not only did Kirk “tread boldly” I seem to remember that he went “All In” on more than one occasion. There again, that was the ’60s. Progress.

  174. I cannot understand why it took Lord Alastair McAlpine so long to issue a statement.

    I hope it was not because he was trying to protect the McAlpine family name, because there was a McAlpine relative living close to that home who was notorious for this sort of thing and who used to chair McAlpine.

    http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/the-mcalpine-cockup-keeping-a-sense-of-perspective/

    The Mail doesn’t finger Jimmie McAlpine, but who is this person whose ‘McAlpine’ name was clearly bandied about at the time:

    ‘The person Steven Messham apparently mistook for Lord McAlpine was allegedly a member of a different branch of the family who lived in North Wales, and who is indeed dead. But beyond this testimony, there is no evidence that this man ever abused children, either.’

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2230788/Paedophile-scandal-How-BBC-nailed-wrong-man-A-Child-abuse-scandal-TV-bosses-desperate-atone-humiliation-Savile–Newsnight-investigation-backfired.html

  175. We are in a strange post-frailty world where prurience and puritanism go hand in hand, where all is permissible – unless it isn’t – and where the strange Through The Looking Glass rule book is not only written by the left but wholly subject to their partisan interpretation too.

    A world where James Forsyth can breezily relate the words of a security insider without the slightest concern for what they actually imply:-

    “One man who knows his way to Vauxhall Cross explained Downing Street and the security establishment’s enthusiasm for Obama thus: ‘The Americans are still doing most of the same stuff they did under Bush, targeted drone strikes and all that. But no one seems to mind because it is a black, Democratic President. If Romney wins, though, the whole stop-the-war lot will be out in force straight away.'”

  176. @Frank P 10th, 2012 – 01:18

    “Nota bene: ” Her work challenges existing theories”

    I ran it through Google Translator…it’s still gibberish!

  178. I see Lord McAlpine plans to sue the BBC – well good luck to him and I hope he wins, but surely what is needed is a change in the law to prevent the BBC, as a Corporate body, being sued and place the onus on the lying bastards that run the show?

    Suing the BBC means you collect money from the taxpayer, whilst the guilty reptiles walk away with, at best, a slap on the wrist. If Paxo et al thought they could lose their own lovely lolly, they might actually ask the question “Is this true?” before they opened their poisonous and highly biased gobs!

  179. Clear Memories
    November 10th, 2012 – 11:01
    If I am correct, Lord McAlpine has really brought in the big legal guns. His lawyer, I believe , is also a Deputy High Court Judge, Claims. One thing puzzles me, how can a judge be a lawyer too, especially a claims one? Surely there can be a conflict of interests, justice v top dollar damages.

  180. Well, I’m back starting an off-the-cuff commentary 45 minutes into Bill Whittle at http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=s02SypCcYIc

    The story so far: The USA is split almost evenly between “the virtuous” (those who still have ethical principles) and the non-virtuous (those who believe all values are relative so that there is no good or evil but Attila the Hun’s point of view is as “valid” as that of St. Francis of Assisi).

    The solution is not the oppose the government of the “non-virtuous” (Obama0 because they will crush opposition; but rather to finance, on a modest per capita contribution of, say, US$10 per month, NGOs (non-governmental organizations – non-profit organizations) to do the work we would want done and have it done better than government where government has the same basic programmes, while bearing the burden of continuing to pay taxes for the projects of the non-virtuous.

    I have my doubts whether the republicans are all “virtuous” or whether all the democrats ar “non-virtuous”, but I understand Whittle’s basic, if somewhat schematic, distinction.

    So:

    How to implement the parallel structure model? asks Whittle. Stop thinking of it as a government. The post-“giant government” age. Whittle influenced by “Scott Rasmussen” (Who he?) and former Congressman [Thaddeus G. McCotter?], and a book called “The Starfish and the Spider” [The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations – see e.g.http://irevolution.net/2010/01/09/starfish-spider-decentralization/%5D. Rasmussen said most important election in US is in 8 years time when all the debts come due; public change happens before political change – the Rosa Parks (in 1955 told to sit at the back of the bus- she said no) example – her action triggered the civil rights movement, but she had saaid in 1943 that she wan’t going to sit at the back.Tectonic shift of civil rights movement happened because people’s views had changed between 1943-1955.The public change changed the politics. McCotter (if I have the right guy) said the present gigantic top=down hierarchical federal government grew out of the Industrial Revolution;now the Information Technology revolution.Idea of USA started when America was an agricultural country. Dispersed virtuous people – you had to be virtuous if growing your own food or defending your own home.present “tumour” state is not the product of the founder’s vision but came into being to govern the country created by the industrial revolution country; “so this giant, vertical, big, enormous, fat slow, dinosaur of a government was designed to govern a vertical, fat, rigid, top-down, immobile, second generation Industrial society” but McCotter said if he can order steel from China immediately on a cell phone then that world is gone. So if the vertical economy is now horizontal any person anyweher in America can order from anywhere in the world and you will have a horizontal, dispersed government because slow-moving vertical govedrnment cannot govedrn a horizontal, rapidly evolving economy.

    So stop thinking about winning elections, continues Whittle; the government has never been the country, so stop putting things and energy into it. USA founded on the idea of being opposed to a government. If Obama has control of the government, it doesn’t mean he has won control of America. He won control of what is preventing people from being America. (OK, I’m with you still)

    Information technology allows us to function as a dispersed, horizontal, democratic group of virtuous people.

    You ignore the ones who are NOT virtuous!’

    How do you implement the parallel structure? Others can come up with the ideas.How though do you get a critical mass (for, e.g., a space programme or schools NGO)? Image, salesmanship, selling ideas and branding.

    Whittle’s experience: 2 years ago he set up “the common sense resistance” – trademark and website: “a self-selecting group of people who understand that hard work should be rewarded, that nothing is free, and that solutions are not only available but they are obvious”. Whittle has spent too much time fighting Obama and media bias against the Republicans directly – no more time, money or energy in that direction. We ignore them.

    The parallel structures will ultimately win converts because it will outpeform the dinosaur state and make profits.

    (What about the military?)

    Whittle now asks: how do you actually bring this about?

    Tea break time at 58 minutes in.

    (I am with Whittle so far, sort of, and this must apply in spades to the Chinese political system.)

  181. Anne Wotana Kaye 1 @ 11:12

    I think the answer is because he is not at one and the same time a lawyer for one of the parties in the dispute and the judge deciding the dispute.

  183. Ostrich (occasionally) @ 10:13

    Surely not; the ancient Chinese for example had a theory that the world was flat, but that theory, although still existing in the 17th century, began to be challenged by, among others, the Jesuits.

  185. From The Spider and the Starfish (see above):

    “1. When attacked, a decentralized organization tends to become even more open and decentralized:

    Not only did the Apaches survive the Spanish attacks, but amazingly, the attacks served to make them even stronger. When the Spanish attacked them, the Apaches became even more decentralized and even more difficult to conquer.”

    http://irevolution.net/2010/01/09/starfish-spider-decentralization

    Uh-oh! This also sounds like Al Qaeda…

  186. EC
    November 10th, 2012 – 08:28

    Well, I suppose we should be relieved that he didn’t also screw the co-author Vernon Leob; “don’t ask – don’t tell”, indeed.

  187. Clear Memories (11:01)

    Did you watch BBC 2’s Newsnight’s orgy of self destruction last night? Real “Alice-through-the-looking-glass” stuff. It was like being at a trial where the defendant in the dock was also the main prosecution witness, the Judge and the jury. And the most delicious aspect of this long overdue nemesis was that the light-on-his-loafers Eddie Mair was stuck up as anchor for the debacle. Surely Newsnight is now toast? Wonder what Paxo will do? The taxpayer will have to pick up the tab, of course. All part of the chronicle of a crumbling civilisation, sadly. Tragic that Auntie Beeb in her 85th year has to watch her heirs and successors disgrace the broadcasting heritage. She was such a comforting soul throughout the troubled years of my childhood.

  188. @Malfleur 10th, 2012 – 11:35

    Aye, I was really commenting on the convoluted “English”; a bit of effort does manage to elicit a meaning. But why should such effort be necessary?

  189. George Entwhistle, new broom radical DG of the Beeb was on R5 this morning. He was asked if he would be considering resigning before or after any reports are published, seeing as he has been a Newsnight Editor, then higher supervisor manager sub-director of, and now DG.

    He gave a very long answer which could easily have been expressed as “No”

    Meanwhile in the same parallel universe….

    http://uk.news.yahoo.com/sir-elton-john-expecting-second-baby-113527677.html

    There’s no mention whether the sprog will arrive by Recorded Delivery or DHL.

  191. Well-wisher at 10:11 – quite so! Your opening paragraph belongs in a frame.

    Melanie Phillips is one of the few to have latched on to this and written in much detail about it.

    Stereotypically Right wing things are OK once they are deemed OK by the Left.

    The Left can do no wrong. The Right can only do wrong.

    It is an extraordinary hijacking of language and ideas by what we loosely call the Left that has achieved this.

    Everything is topsy turvy once a Left wing character is doing it.

    Turn on sit-com, watch a stand-up comedian and you will hear endless references to Right wing where the presupposition is always that it is bad.

    Yet whenever the Left picks one of those options (ie is mugged by reality), everyone forgets what the Right was saying.

    We need to replace those terms as the word Right has now been so contaminated by the culture war poisoners who do all the ideological dirty work on the meaning of language.

    Your opening paragraph at 10:11 belongs in a frame.

  192. We need to pick a term and use it. I am not of the ‘right’, what does that mean outside of Parliament where it no longer has any meaning at all.

    I am no longer even a conservative. How can we conserve what has already been lost.

    We must be radicals and revolutionaries of some sort. But this requires that there is some common vision. What is our common vision?

  193. He supports women bishops and has already said that he is willing to revise his opposition to ‘gay marriage’. He is an Anglican. Increasingly the Anglican Church will become even more irrelevant. I hope that the Catholics, with support from Orthodox, become what they already are, the major Apostolic community in the country.

    If I agree with the Archbishop elect I would be an Anglican. I am not and so do not. I had not expected to agree with him. It is late, far too late, for Anglicanism, which is now the Socialist Party at prayer. (This is not a criticism of the faith of any particular Anglicans here or elsewhere. But the Anglican experiment has failed, and failed some time ago).

  194. P from M – “I am no longer even a conservative. How can we conserve what has already been lost. ” Tragic and true.

  195. Just as when you hear people talking a foreign language, you can often tell what language it is even though you don’t understand what is being said, so you might recognise the language of Paul Broadwell’s cv.

    It’s the sort of language often found in public sector and quango and job specs. Successful applicants will reply in kind. As far as I can make out, it doesn’t particularly matter what you mean (if anything). The important thing is that “you speak our language, you’re one of us.”

  196. No Frank, I’m not in UK. I abandoned the third-world hell-hole nearly seven years ago to seek my fortune in the wider world. Currently, I’m in the middle of Africa in a hell-hole that was a shithole before the term third-world was invented!

    Interestingly, most of the residents here seem happy enough. I guess if your expectations are (what we would consider) low, then life is not such a big disappointment. And, if you’ve never had political freedom, you don’t know what you’ve missed and are unlikely to agitate for more say. It strikes me here (and I won’t name the place until I’m safely out) that the government maintains wages low and from what I’ve been told, unless you are part of the ruling family, no matter how distant, there is little point in starting a business as, if you succeed, they’ll just take it off you either by force or underhand commercial tactics. Thus, there is no real middle class, intelligent and aspirational and potentially threatening the ruling elite.

    Strikes me western governments are seeking to achieve that condition with their endless debilitating attacks and constant chiselling away at conservative life-styles.

  198. Frank Sutton (13:44)

    ” As far as I can make out, it doesn’t particularly matter what you mean (if anything). The important thing is that “you speak our language, you’re one of us.””

    Newspeak. It was also injected into policing once the placemen had been selected and installed, via Bramshill College. But it was mainly imported from the US.

    When I first started to seriously interact with the US police intelligence agencies and their academic mentors, back in the late 70’s and early eighties, I found it particularly prevalent and the lingo had to be learned in order to establish inroads. On the other hand, most of the front line operatives were aware of the nonsense and the pragmatists among us still operated sub-rosa, despite the academic argot and got the things done that were needed despite the dictates of the upper echelons, whose motivation and aims were entirely political and mainly socialist, to boot. But my generation of of practical law-enforcers are now all dead or dying; moreover, our heirs and successors who are still public spirited and wish to police fairly without fear or favour, regardless of race, religion, social standing, etc. etc. have less opportunity and power to ‘do the necessary, regardless’ as the whole top structure of policing has become top heavy, politicised and the independent constabulary powers largely transferred to lawyers and politicians. They, in turn, are heavily influenced by, or indeed part of, minority pressure groups.

    Therein lies the root of the problem. This will be exacerbated next week when the ludicrous wheeze of ‘elected’ Police Commissioners will burden the front line of policing with even more obstacles and frustration (using precious funds that could be deployed in much needed resources in these times of austerity. Once again, I urge everyone to either refuse to vote or go to the polling booth and spoil your ballot papers – with a suitably inscribed insult. It’s a travesty and Cameron should be ashamed of himself for countenancing it. In fact he should be tried for so many treasonous acts inherent in his administration’s policies, that this is just one of many aspects of his failure as a ‘conservative’ Prime Minister.

  199. Frank S – 13.44

    I’ve already mentioned here that the new Archshibboleth has been talking on the BBC about social justice and going forward which, for those with ears to hear and eyes to see, will already have caused a division amongst his flock. Not bad going for a leader who hasn’t actually started his new job yet.

    Peter from M – 14.09

    I’m not sure about what name one could use to rebrand the Right. American conservatives use the word Libertarianism, though the problem for me is it isn’t, in sound, distinctive enough from Liberal. But whilst we think about that, why don’t we, on blogs and in our daily lives, use the weapon long used by the Left.
    The Smearing Epithet.
    Let’s talk about the Hard Left Ed Balls, the Marxist Paedophile promoter Harriet Harman, the Socialist commentator Andrew Marr etc. etc..
    Of course one would have to practice a little first in order to perfect the correct degree of false disappointment in the required sneer, and to get used to forming the accompanying curl of the lip and twisted half-smile.

  200. Clear Memories (14:05)

    Yes, I realise that you’re an ex-pat and having followed your posts assiduously since you appeared on the intertubes I know roughly where you are and why. But as we’re all now part of the cybersphere, I took it for granted that the renegades here all keep up with agitprop through the BBC i-player (know thine enemy), which is why I wondered if you had seen the Newsnight cabaret yesterday, which is getting max coverage here today as you can imagine as the MSM jackals enter into an incestuous orgy of infighting. It’s worth digging it out; nothing quite like seeing the enemy tear itself apart.

  201. I very rarely bother with their i-player as much of it’s content is unavailable in large areas outside the UK. Its as if they’re ashamed to let the rest of the world know what absolute liars they are.

  202. Irish Boy (01:44)

    Bwaahahahahaha.

    Yerrrss! Trouble with Glenn, he’s got piles of ammunition and his heart’s in the right place, but his ego is immense and his powers of synthesis are limited; sometimes blinkered or even biased by his religious stance and his oft emotional presentation. In warfare one should weep inwardly; tears are a distraction to your fellow warriors. I share his frustration, though; and his schism from Fox is still something of a mystery – to me, anyway. I’m pissed off that O’Reilly tried to turn him into a risible figure and didn’t use more of his research about the history of US communism/progressivism in the Factor slot. In the end I think O’Reilly thought he was in danger of being out-thundered by Beck and got jealous. There is also Rupe’s underlying socialist leaning to contend with, which admittedly comes a poor third to his lust for power and his avarice. So the permutations of the undercurrents make the times and tides of the media very unpredictable and sometimes unfathomable. I’ve got to the stage now where I just enjoy sitting in my rocking chair, watching/listening to/reading about, the eruptions on my screens and earphones various and occasionally issuing forth with wild and obscene imprecations, mainly to clear the dirty water off me chest.
    And of course provoking the renegades hereupon into fighting the good fight: One hopes long my long-suffering nearest and dearest have thrown my dusty archives into the skip and given my faltering cyber-gear to the rag and bone man – they still exist around here, but many of ’em are now dealing in gold. That should tell you something about the state of the economy.

  204. IRISHBOY

    “The Smearing Epithet.
    Let’s talk about the Hard Left Ed Balls, the Marxist Paedophile promoter Harriet Harman, the Socialist commentator Andrew Marr etc. etc..”

    An excellent idea I shall attempt to make a start here and now.

    The mainstream media and in particular the BBC are vilifying that breath of fresh air Nadine Dorries for her impudence in taking a few weeks absence from the House of Commons and yet never mention that the Mad Marxist Gordon Brown is almost never in the chamber roaming the globe on behalf of of any cause save those he is meant to represent or his fellow Marxist the ‘I am in a sulk’ David Miliband supposed member of Parliament for South Shields who is for ever gallivanting off around the globe feathering his own nest.

  205. Incidentally – the piece linked in my 15:36 comment contains a very revealing paragraph:

    Mr Entwistle said questions needed to be asked about the Newsnight film: “Did the journalists carry out basic checks, did they show Mr Messham the picture, did they put allegations to the individual, did they think of putting allegations to the individual, if they did not, why not, and did they have any corroboration of any kind?”.

    This indicates that Entwhistle is clueless about the rules of investigation and evidence, anyway. In policing, or good investigative journalism, it is anathema and prohibited to show a single photograph to a victim of a a suspected perpetrator. It can lead to mis-identification, rather than good evidence. Using either an ID line-up or CRO photo albums, the suspected perpetrator must be presented within an ID parade, or a slection of photographs of people of similar appearance to ensure that the victim does not succumb to suggestion by the investigator. Entwhistle should be sacked. He’s a jerk-off.

  206. Btw, the other fallacy is that it is necessary conclusive one way or the other if an alleged victim doesn’t recognise an alleged perpetrator by means of a photograph; often people do not recognise people they know well by their photographs, never mind chance encounters in traumatic circumstances. Not that I’m in any way suggesting that McAlpine might still be guilty as there are other issues in this which clearly indicate he is innocent in regard to this allegation.

  207. PfM 10th, 2012 – 14:09

    “Or National Resistance?”

    Or “National Back-bone” (not to be confused with the “National Front bone.)

  208. After contemplating the Whittle proposals for several days it seems to me that there is a massive flaw in their most vital element.

    That element is the idea that society can be brought to its senses and gradually become virtuous by means of an education system entirely independent of government and supported by voluntary contributions.

    My objection to it is not that it can’t work – far from it.

    The flaw is that the massive force of huge government that exists in the US and in other western democracies will never allow it to work. Attempts to implement it will be made criminal.

    Malfleur – (November 10th, 2012 – 11:25)

    You say – “(I am with Whittle so far, sort of, and this must apply in spades to the Chinese political system.)” To some extent I agree with you.

    However, I also think that the Chinese will probably succeed in devising their own kind of solution to the situation. One hopeful sign is the recent speech by Chinese President Hu Jintao –

    http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/world/asia/china-party-congress/index.html

    It seems to me that to recognise that corruption can pose a serious danger demonstrates what Whittle calls ‘virtue’. Assuming that the Chinese government takes effective measures to suppress corruption, it will, in that respect, also merit Whittle’s description of ‘virtuous’ will it not?

  210. I dont think the educational system is the primary issue. I could imagine my children attending a school that was exactly what I wanted, but the rest of the culture they are immersed in would corrupt them.

    I think what is primarily needed is truth. And that is why I am still interested in an alternative polling organisation that us not run by corporations or politicians, and also in an alternative news platform which analyses events rather than propagandises. I think both of these could work with a relatively small initial investment.

    One would ask what the nation really thinks. The other would describe and analyse what is really happening.

    Both would subvert the virtual world in which we are trapped.

  211. Up in the small hours worrying about western civilization and not yet ready to return to the Whittle piece:

    Just in case anyone thinks that the scandal in the Obama administration is small beer, and setting aside the formal complaints against Obama for treason which have been lodged (by whackos and retired military of that ilk of course – most recently 8th November – Google for details), contemplate this for a while on the Wall Street Journal site :

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/major-banks-governmental-officials-and-their-comrade-capitalists-targets-of-spire-law-group-llps-racketeering-and-money-laundering-lawsuit-seeking-return-of-43-trillion-to-the-united-states-treasury-2012-10-25

    Yes, you read that right – US$43T.

    And this with wider links including the one to the WSJ:

    http://www.examiner.com/article/money-laundering-lawsuit-against-fed-could-be-tied-to-obama-staff-shakeup

    and you will probably not be sleeping either.

    And if you can’t sleep, then you might as well also take a look at:

    http://www.exposeobama.com/2012/03/08/lou-dobbs-report-details-21-legal-violations-by-obama-admin/

    which was one example taken from a fairly comprehensive bill of particulars at:

    http://commieblaster.com/obamacrimes/index.html

  212. PfM –

    I entirely agree with your saying that what is primarily needed is truth.

    But western schools and universities teach that Islam is harmless. That is a lie. It is a lie because Islamic education on the other hand, especially as it is manifested in the numberless madrassas, teaches the lie that both genocide and the subjugation of infidels by means of Jihad are virtues.

    When a government-run educational system teaches lies – especially the one I mentioned – and moreover if – or when, as seems likely – our governments forbid people to avail themselves of a system that teaches truth and virtue – then surely it can lead only to disaster? That is why I believe the nature of the western educational system is very much a primary issue.

    Worse still is the development that western governments – especially in Britain – increasingly attempt to treat the speaking and writing of the truth about Islam as a crime.

  213. Much as I wanted Romney and decry the 11/6 result I feel that now is the time to say that Americans pull together in the face of adversity.
    Defamatory comment whether within or without the US has monetary consequences for the originator if they cannot back it up.
    It is also a truism that even with Petraeus gone the CIA has a long reach and takes little heed that some comment may be tongue in cheek.

  214. Frank P – I thank you for the link. I can’t play the i-player based programme but the report was a taster.

    One thing strikes me. Why didn’t they crucify Harman, having got her to talk? She was the walking, talking piece of shit that was the legal advisor to the civil liberties crew of leftie-wankers that supported the Perverts Information Exchange and backed their efforts to lower the age of consent (to 0?). When is one of the mainstream media outlets going to hold her to account for that? Its far more pertinent than attempting a smear on ‘is lordship.

    By the way, Saville was not a paedo, there is a strict definition of that word – see wikipedia. Saville liked them to have t**s. Fellas, don’t we all – unless our name is Elton! Lets be honest about this, if they look old enough, who enquires too deeply. Doesn’t change the fact he was a dodgy geezer and what he did was indefensible.

    Just commenting on the bleedin’ obvious.

  215. Clear Memories
    November 10th, 2012 – 20:54
    The miserable perverted Establishment we have will never even say ‘Boo’ to that lump of frozen shite called Harriet Harman, let alone bring her to face public exposure for her Nonce’s Information Exchange. The whole damn lot of them are marxists, plain and simple, and Stalin and China’s old dictator Mao would have felt very much at home and had all their sick appetites satisfied under her agenda. Just learned the Director-General of the BBC has resigned, and they are all having a mutual admiration society lovefest about that horrible institution. As Verity has so often advocated here, the BBC should be torn down.

  216. Frank P 14:37

    Just reassure me: when push comes to shove, our constabulary will be on our side when we finally mount a rearguard response to Sharia?

  217. A further thought on the resignation of Mr Entwhistel: what will the severance pay be for two months in the job? Will there be a golden handshake?

  219. AWK

    I suspect you’re being provocative! You already know the amount don’t you? Is it less than a million?

  221. Remember Verity’s suggestion of an Anglosphere? I have always found that attractive but how do we form this with President Obama’s new USA.

    The secessionist States no longer have a voice. You know, it is truly appalling what has happened to the US. A mighty nation brought to its knees by a hater. It will be ugly, there will be bloodshed but we’re going down.

  223. John Jefferson Burns, November 10th, 2012 – 20:37

    “I feel that now is the time to say that Americans pull together in the face of adversity.”

    “Americans” How quaint!

    Recent events have demonstrated that finally, after decades of subversion enabled by poor government, the term “Americans” is no longer meaningful without qualification. The USA and their populace are now about as cohesive as a bulimic and their lunch.

  226. Are we looking at a struggle between the Obama regime and the US military, or is my brain just getting overheated from too much surfing relevant stories on the web? May be I had better take my meds. Move along, there’s nothing to see here.

  227. Bloodbath at the BBC, according to the Mail. Laughing my head off. They are about to tear everybody to bits who has ever had the slightest connection to NewsNight. Entwistle is just the first. 🙂

  228. Redneck 22.56

    Great link, thank you!
    It gives one hope to know that even in the Last Ditch, we’ll be surrounded by tough men of spirit! And despite what the psephologists would have us think, I still believe that a good party of the Right can and will be successful. Somehow. Someday . . . . .

  229. Ron Kessler from Newsmax magazine has just been interviewed on Fox News and really ramped up the Petraeus scandal. He states that the FBI had been on the case for months and the White House stifled it until after the election. Apparently the paramour dumped him eventually – as they do – but he was besotted and he kept e-mailing her (hundreds of pleas, according to Kessler’s FBI sources) to the point of harassment. No fool like an old fool when his brains have descended to his scrotum!

    The FBI were incensed, because despite having been seriously compromised Petraeus was kept in post, mainly to avoid embarrassment for Obama before election day. Kessler also hinted, during the interview, the desk in the Oral Office, at the Shite House, during Clinton’s stints, is not the only one under which fun and games have taken place during ‘de-briefings’; it is suggested that the CIA director’s desk hid similar indiscretions and that innuendo about this was picked up from the emails.

    There will be more fun and games when the Congressional Hearings start next week. It may be the Benghazi incident was at least partly due to the fact that he was preoccupied with his crumpet problem which took his eye off the ball. Once again the head honchos of Obama’s administration are accused of a major cover-up to save O’s ass – and that his re-election, as with Nixon’s, could be of a somewhat transient nature. Hip, hip ….

  231. I’m reading the new rush of reports about Petraeus’ affair with a large pinch of salt. Affairs between women and high-ranking military men are nothing new (e.g. during WW2 between General Eisenhower and, I think, his woman driver) and there was no suggestion that it compromised allied security.

    The way Petraeus’ affair is being publicised, and the timing of the publicity, not to mention the matter of the murders in Benghgazi, give the impression that there is something going on that we are not being told about. I hope I am wrong, but I think there is a smell of a cover-up of something sinister.

  233. I just popped across to see how Trolltopia is dealing with the BBC fiasco.

    As Frasier won’t let me barrack him from his own platform, I’ll do it from here.

    In his post about the crisis, he says of Eddie Mair (illustrating his point with a photo of the fey Eddie)

    “Then he gave the camera a look that really was worth a thousand words, many of them expletives:-”

    Actually, the depiction looks as though he is about to administer a well-rehearsed BJ (I thought that on Friday, when I saw the Newsnight edition under discussion, which I discussed above at November 10th, 2012 – 12:08, but I was too polite to say it at the time). 🙂

    btw – if you’d rather I not use this site to obviate the New Specstatesman embargo, please let me know and I will abide by your wishes.

  234. A nice article on Beeboid insitutional and legally endorsed secrecy (h/t brossen99 at the Sp*c)

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/09/bbc_beats_blogger_/

    Good to see the hapless Bentwhistle (sp?) resigning and I’d like to see ‘living marxist’ Boaden go the same way.

    And then the Long March to reduce the appropriation licence (gradually if need be) to cut this overmighty pest down to size.

  236. Watching BBC 1 TV, I saw the very best of a Britain that all the marxists, liberals and outright traitors haven’t yet crushed into the ground. The Queen and Prince Philip stood at the head of the family which is Great Britain (yes Great) , and the survivors of the terrible wars marched, or were wheeled past to glorious military music. By contrast, I then saw that personification of pure evil, Harriet Harman on the Politics show. I make no comment, comparison with the fine patriots we saw in the previous programme says it all.

  237. So, Frank P, 11th. 12:44, you are familiar with my relative and partial namesake in the cadet branch of the family, Archie Cuntsbury? Charming enough fellow, but a bit of a ditherer, I’m afraid. The family always said it was a mistake to have put his name down for Eton.

  238. The censorship over at the Telegraph now seems to be in full gallop. This article had some 200 comments a couple of hours ago and most were absolutely seething. Now there are 165, and “comments closed”!

  240. That “LingoStu” commenting there is another useful idiot. He obviously has no understanding at all of the once tried and true application of a constable’s discretion. Box ticker.

  241. Would this be the time to press the BBC to make public the 2004 Balen report on bias in its coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict as a preliminary response to the promise of a “thorough, structural, radical overhaul”; or is that a bit too radical ?

  242. Frank P 12:13

    From my point of view, please carry on: your summaries from the once proud Spectator are superb. They are extremely useful ammo!

  243. Malfleur

    1. Yes, Arab-Israeli.
    2. Global warming.
    3. Immigration and reporting on Neather.

    Those three should do for starters.

  244. Well-wisher (14.39)

    Probably applying for job as elected Police Commissioner; or one of the jobsworths they now turn out in droves from Hendon.

  245. I hope to finish off listening to Bill Whittle tomorrow. In the meantime, I noticed an FT Lunch interview in the Weekend edition of the Financial Times with Conrad Black. I don’t know if Lord Black is still in England, but as he is proposing a come-back this might be a good time for Peter from Maidstone perhaps to see if he could contact him for a short piece on his views on the Spectator and the Daily Telegraph since it changed owners. Alternatively, he sounds as though he would be a stimulating peson to interview… He has a new book out.

    There is also an interesting article by Harry Eyres in his column, The Slow Lane, on the back of the Life and Arts section about libraries, which was a focus of this site for a while if I remember correctly. He compares The London Library and a new Wellcome library set up by the eponymous philanthropist. The latter might have some relevance to Peter from Maidstone’s thoughts on polling @ 17:19 on 10th November and his proposal for a National Resistance or similarly named website @ 14.09 on 10th November once funding is available – which may not be that far off.

  246. Redneck (14:50)

    Carry on Up the Spectator, Eh?

    Trouble is, even by visiting the site, it helps their marketing capability I suspect – footfalls?

    Anyway I just dropped in on Nelson’s latest post about Tom Watson, MP (surmounted by a picture of his ugly mug). Among my wife’s Tesco order the other day was a very large spud – of the King Edward variety, I believe.

    I commandeered it and decorated it with a pair of old NHS specs of the 60s vintage; now, although it’s a very accurate facsimile of the MP for West Brom, I have to say it radiates far more charm than the douchebag himself.

    But then it is apparent that a prerequisite of membership of the Labour Party is physical ugliness; and to be the Deputy Chairman of it no doubt demands that you resemble a King Edward potato at best. Seems a shame to insult a staple food, but you know what I mean, I’m sure.

    As for the article itself, it was the usual rambling ‘on-the-one-hand and on-the- other-hand – an obsequious one to boot, as it encapsulated a flattering quote from his boss Brillo – the main purpose of the essay, I assume. 22 Old Queens Street has become a Wanker’s Waffle Parlour.

  247. Back to Buzz Words. Does anybody else find it nauseating the way the word ‘passionate’ is used for the most mundane purposes? “We are passionate in selling our mobiles” or “We are seeking salespeople who are passionate about shoes” UGH!

  249. Hexhamgeezer
    November 11th, 2012 – 18:21
    A passionate involvement that dares not say it’s name

  251. And speaking of shite, I just tried to click onto Trolltopia and received this message on my screen:

    Suspicious Web Page Blocked

    You attempted to access:
    http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/

    For your protection, this web page has been blocked and submitted for review. Visit Symantec to learn more about phishing and internet security.

    It is recommended that you do NOT visit this page, however if you know that this web page is safe, you may choose to visit this web page anyway.

    Exit this site

    Are they trying to damage my site with a cyber-bomb do you think? 🙂

  252. “It is recommended that you do NOT visit this page, however if you know that this web page is safe, you may choose to visit this web page anyway.”

    Who takes advice from illiterates?

  253. Entwhistle is getting £450,000. Just heard on the news. Not bad for a lad from “Coronation Street”!

  255. It’s been a bit busy for me today, but I have enjoyed all the posts, and hope that Frank P will not cease to provide a running commentary on the New Spectatesman site, if he is able to visit it without being infected by something nasty.

  256. AWK 20:27

    If Mr Cameron were to have any decency, he’d question why licence-payers’ money is being disgracefully squandered in this way. How on earth can this payment be justified?

    This gentleman has chosen to resign because he has failed. What honour code does he live by that allows him to justify receiving this?

    Appalling.

  257. Appalling, I agree. Cameron, Entwhistle and Patten to name just three, feel no guilt in stripping the British taxpayers from monies taken for licences. ‘Snouts at troughs’ should be the motto representing the Establishment.

  258. Redneck (21:11)

    It’s his years salary. If they didn’t pay it, he would sue for constructive dismissal and win, anyway. So it cost the taxpayer less to settle than to sack him, in fact. Let’s face it if they sacked every incompetent BBC Executive there would be nobody left. The jobs are all sinecures for political placemen and of the sinistral persuasion, to boot. The people who produce the half decent output (which deteriorates every year) from this obscene voracious behemoth, do so in spite of the parasites, not with their advice and guidance.

    The bloody sacrifice of Entwhistle is another attempt to ward off a wholesale muck-out of the Augean stables, which is long overdue. There is a Heracles out there: I propose David Elstein for the job:

    http://www.opendemocracy.net/author/david-elstein

    He is a very shrewd operator who would run rings around the placemen and probably break up the whole monolith with well placed semtex. The most experienced media exec in the country, by far. Would he take the job? Not for the wages they paid the outgoing dickhead, but for a reasonable screw he might do it as a project – for fun. And to shaft a few old adversaries. Ain’t that right David?

  260. Frank P 22:02

    I know you’re right Frank but where are the guy’s principles? Honestly, what a craven act.

  261. 58 minutes into Bill Whittle’s piece, I have a couple of preliminary comments before heading into the closing straight.

    1. Whittle proposes that “the virtuous” work on the parallel structures while ignoring the government and election system in the hope that in time the excellence of the structures will draw people away from “the non-virtuous” leading to the collapse of the latter, and that any direct challenge to the party of the “non-virtuous” before that point is reached, especially by force, would invite a crushing response.

    Whittle’s questionable premise is that the :”non-virtuous” would simply let those parallel structures develop into a challenge to their power without smashing them before they reached that point. The experience of totalitarian regimes, which is the direction in which the USA is headed, is that they stamp out voluntarism in civil society – indeed they want to abolish civil society (“where two three are gathered together in my name, etc.” is an invitation to get nipped in the bud).

    Nonetheless, expanding civil society in the way Whittle proposes seems a worthy aim and it may not be too late for the USA which was pretty much rooted in such dynamics from the arrival of thre Mayflower, was it not – which, by the way, leads me to be concerned about the increasing “hispanic” or “latino” immigration which, in South America, that gathering place for political basket-cases, the tradition and roots are very different indeed and largely malign. (Ok, we have the music of Augustin Barrios Mangore and the novels of Mario Vargas Llosa as a result, but do you get my drift?)

    2. I am a bit wary of this division between 150,000,000 virtuous and 150,000,000 non-virtuous. I don’t think it’s as simple as this – there are plenty of swine among the Republicans, I would guess and some good people elsewhere…

    However, back to the link 58 minutes in:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=s02SypCcYIc

    Whittle argues that the parallel structure will only cost a voluntary micro-tax that the citizen can cease paying whenever he chooses, a decision governed by the profit motive.

    How do you actually bring this about?
    The current political brands and vocabulary are tarnished. Whittle proposes “The Common Sense Resistance” (a brand with the colour white for no statement) – see Peter from Maidstone above @ 14.09 on 10th November – so deselecting the elitists who think they’re smarter and who have caused the problem we are faced with.

    1. A “virtual” political group cooperating through the internet for basic decent goals.
    2. The world breaks down into problem solvers and those who are problems.

    (At the moment, he may not be taking into account the power of the “non-virtuous” to control the internet and thus the “self-organizing structures” – but worth a try until the bad guys get their act together

    3. He cites Alcoholics Anonymous as a precedent for its organizing “12 step” principle,[wazzat, hic!] duplicated by others who saw its success rate.Founder didn’t want to control AA and its steps; happy to see the principle used freely and improved here possible. “Open source code” system à la Apple which makes the hardware but lets you invent and make available the apps if you want – hence about a million apps available for an Apple phone.

    [He gives at 1hr.04 in an example from his cell phone – an app called SHAZAM (http://www.shazam.com/) – it picked up a few bars of music in a crowded Mexican restaurant and instantaneously gave Whittle a read out of what the music was, who recorded it etc. – an app which Whittle could never have thought of in a million years]

    4. Open Source Government
    A critical mass of people brings in all kinds of expertise to bear on problems. (Whittle cites as example of how this can work the example on the internet before the 2004 election when people with expertise cooperating but unknown to each other, not organized by anyone, and resisting CBS attempts to refute their arguments swiftly identified as fraudulent a document which CBS had adduced and posted on the internet as evidence of George Bush being AWOL from the Texas National Guard.)

    5. Citizens as Free Agents/Private Contractors (Freelancers)
    People would have to plug themselves into these virtual networks who wanted their various services or products.

    6. The Common Sense Resistance
    can become a series of dispersed networks not controlled by anyone and in which the networks create themselves.

    7. The Area where the Government could come after You:
    A system like barter but where money is still the consideration for the goods or services exchanged through the network, the less money the state gets [Wasn’t the government only recently criticizing cash payments for casual work provided and floating an idea that all employers should only pay their employees through a state medium?] Whittle is not however advocating the collapse of the state.

    Whittle summarizes:

    Golden rule: a commitment to not breaking the law, tax law or otherwise.You pay for quality services/goods and taxes on what you receive, but “all the dead weight is gone” – by which I guess he means the costs that accrete through government impinging on conventionally structured transactions – that needs looking at more closely – the jobsworths can still find a way. You may still have to pay swingeing taxes, but you can get done all the things that government is not getting done, by getting things done well and very quickly in parallel with government.The principle will be excellence and the profit motive, not politics.

    The state will wither away – he doesn’t use those words, but that’s the idea. A great idea – I wonder why no-one had it before….

    I still think that government is going to be able to step in to regulate networks and network projects to death; but, again,who knows how far the idea might get before government figured out a way to trammel it? “Worth a shot” is my first reaction. I wonder if it could apply to policing…?

    The common sense resistance networks can also serve as support for the difficulties people will face as the Titanic under Captain Obama sinks under the weight of its red ink. This is not the end of America; it’s the end of the state which is going to get bigger and more powerful before it goes away.

    He concludes with comments on the doubts and fears of men of courage such as Washington, Lincoln and Churchill – and Washington in particular because he couldn’t get Congress to pay for the supplies for the Continental Army. Whittle is not going to let the crooks in the White House steal his country.

    *****

    How about England?

  262. So, lots of people are zeroing in on ‘Newsnight’ this morning…Boris, Dimbleby, Humphrys, etc. Are they going to try to make out that ‘NN’ was a single pustule on an otherwise perfect body? If they think the listening public is that dumb…

  263. Malfleur, sir, Baron has watched it, too, Shall he tell you what he thinks?

    The idea the virtuous will do what he preaches, the doing yields the results he expects ranks on par with that of the virtuous praying to God, hoping for the same result. And not only for the reasons you give. It’s far more likely the virtuous will gradually learn how to join the other tribe, bit by bit, until the whole construct that was the land of the free collapses.

    And Baron has nothing but the greatest admiration for America, her great unwashed of the past.

  264. Baron @ -09.42

    My lord, wise men ne’er sit and wail their woes,
    But presently prevent the ways to wail.

  265. Baron/Malfleur

    Yes; Bill’s wheeze, it seems to me, all depends on the premise that the majority of any society and innately ‘good’ and that even the predominately selfish and – yes, wicked that comprise the minority, have been corrupted by ‘events’ in their lives but are ripe for salvation. I think any study of civilisations over the aeons tends to show otherwise and my personal experience over a long life certainly confirms it to my satisfaction. We’re a rum lot, in the main selfish, stupid, predatory and murderous – and as the oft quoted Lord Acton puts it so succinctly power = corruption = absolute power = absolute corruption.

    And remember – the much revered Churchill needed to employ all that, a great deal of low cunning and slaughter on a massive scale, in conjunction with others of a similar ilk, to achieve the respite that we have enjoyed for two thirds of a century. That respite seems to be nearing its end, and many would point out that the respite itself has been somewhat patchy.

    But I do love it when optimists bust their brains and their balls trying to think of non-violent ways of overcoming the ungodly or even the godly trying to impose their own particular method of godliness on the rest of us. So thanks Bill, there are many good ideas and suggestions that give pause for thought in your excellent brain-storming exposition.

    And Malfleur, thanks for fisking it so intelligently and cogently. I think the tyranny that Obama fronts will, like all tyrannies, burn itself out; our own puny politicians will go on ceding our sovereignty and allow us to be subsumed even further into an unholy alliance that will also over-reach itself and collapse. But hoi polloi will always muddle through and make do with what the bad bastards leave at the table, regardless. The sheeple will go on fuckin’, flockin and bleating. ‘Twas ever thus and ever will be. And if that sounds a little nihilistic, you should not be surprised; as most of you know, that tends to be my default mode. But the cannier ‘mongst you will also discern my admiration of the resilience of the ‘common man’.

  268. Frank P @ 13.04

    A better response than resignation would have been to say ‘Publish and be damned!’. Unfortunately, the United States does not have any aristocrats.

  269. I don’t think that there is a virtuous majority, but I do think that alternative structures can be established to subvert the state, and to produce a sense among the sleeping masses that it is in their interest to reconsider the mephistopholean bargain they have entered into with politicians. I think this is a matter of self interest.

    I do have both a low view and a high view of humanity. It does act in a terrible manner, but it can act in an inspiring one. I would guess that my views are similar to those of Mr. Boot. I shall ask him about some of these ideas when I next see him, and promise to try and conduct a more formal interview. Perhaps I will have something to post this week Frank P?

  270. I wonder if an alternative parallel structure is only seeking to gain that power and influence which the state has, then can it become any better than the state we have? I am doubtful.

    There is some higher goal which must surely be the object of any such alternative politics – not party politics of course, but the organisation of the polis. Where there is power and influence there is corruption. To create structures in which there is no individual power or influence, or at least a rooted balancing of powers and influences so that they cannot be perverted?

    I am still convinced that it is urgently required to develop platforms that speak the truth, against both left and right where necessary. The MSM and politicians cannot be trusted to report or support anything of value.

  271. Malfleur @11.41, how dare Baron challenge you, the bard in support. One can only hope the courage of those who choose to follow Whittle lasts longer than Richard’s. Baron wouldn’t like anything more than to see the idea of the virtuous taking over America and beyond.

    Still, before that happens, peace? The barbarian would hate to feel he’s lost the good will of someone whose sharp observations of life he values and admires.

    Frank @ 12.07

    The firing of Petraeus couldn’t have been for any other reason than his Thursday’s testifying in Congress. If you addd to it Romney’s reluctance to raise the Benghazi murder before the election day, there must be something more to the whole affair like the Republican leadership being consulted, endorsing the no action decision. America should be told.

    Baron’s currently resides in an institution that has the habit of killing those it houses for reasons other than those they got hospitalised for, has plenty of time in between eating, sleeping, pissing to watch the box. Few minutes ago, Andrew Neil stopped banging on ‘you cannot tar the whole of the BBC with one bit of it’, the Newsnight bit. Well, he didn’t say that when the same BBC was kicking the Old Australian. I know what you think of the Old Man (Baron doesn’t think much of him either, he backed him entirely because his Empire was the only one big enough to stand up to the BBC tossers), in fact, nobody had anything good to say about him, the 6mn plus of paying punters for the NoW.

  272. Our insane and corrupt judiciary have granted Abu Quatada’s appeal not to be deported to his home country Jordan. Seems we don’t have enough home-grown criminals, nor enough foreign shite and must continue to maintain this moslem ‘cleric’ and his scum family for evermore. Just hope his address is made public and that there are still brave souls ready to act as vigilantes in the lack of real justice.

  274. Doesn’t say much for the covert ops capability of the West’s Secret Services that this evil kunt remains un-whacked. As for our own judiciary’s inability (or rather unwillingness) to rid the country of such a scourge, with the ample legal tools that they have, together with political backing – it is utterly beyond belief. Just the cost alone of protecting him against our own outraged citizens with sanguine opinions, is mind boggling. What a laughing stock we must be to the Islamic world; weak and ripe for plucking.

  276. I have sent an email to Special Immigration Appeals Commission Tribunal guidance
    (SIACT) expessing in blunt language that they are a band of traitors and criminally insane. I cannot give you the email number as I had to enter a special unnumbered box they give, and I had to write my name (obvious Stasi/gestapo checking being done). Will be interested if they call my bluff and come in the night for me. I am ready for a battle!

  277. Ben (Dover) Bradshaw, Labour MP for Exeter has just been interviewed on Sky News, batting for the BBC in general and George Entwhistle in particular, complaining that Entwhistle should not be the subject of witch hunt, but should be be left alone to find another job to ‘be able to feed his wife and family’.

    Tell ya what Ben – let Georgie boy know that if he slips me the cool £1m he just screwed out of the licence-fee payer, I’ll feed him, his trouble and strife and his saucepan lids for the rest of their lives and have a few bob left over to feed my own family.

    And another thing, stop using your parliamentary influence to secure TV appearances to proselytise on behalf of the bosses of your ‘partner’ Neal Dalgleish, a producer for the BBC. Arse-licker!

  278. Among the various theories about the real reason for the departure of Petraeus, I suggest this –

    Long before the election, Obama and Petraeus were very much divided on all questions having to do with America, Israel, and their mortal Islamic enemies in the Middle East – so much so that Obama was desperate to get rid of him, but knew that if he did, it would likely result his not being elected for a second term.

    Consequently, Obama waited until the very last moment to pressure Petraeus into resigning – and then ensured that when the resignation did happen, it was not only too late to affect Obama’s re-election, but could at the same time be plausibly (to many people) spun into Petraeus’ own doing – with the red herrings of an illicit love affair and “security concerns” thrown in too.

  280. @Herbert Thornton 12th, 2012 – 17:53

    “Among the various theories about the real reason for the departure of Petraeus, I suggest this – ”

    A lot more plausible than some of the guff that’s being touted as ‘fact’.

  281. Herbert, Herbert: Petraeus was ‘seduced’ by Obama, long before the broad(well) did it. O’s string pullers saw him as a possible political threat and prospective Republican candidate for 2012. They therefore enticed him into the big tent so that he would piss out rather than piss in. ‘Boss of he CIA’ was bait that a man with the ego of Petraeus couldn’t refuse. But that meant he had to be put under surveillance from the get-go This administration would make Machiavelli look like a spoof spy from Carry on Up the Khyber – and J Edgar Hoover? Insp. Clouseau by comparison. They had the goods on him for months, they just had to wait for the right opportunity to call in the marker. That opportunity came with Benghazi, the story of that dirty screw-up had to be suppressed until after the election and Petraeus was forced to support the dodgy video cover-story; indeed, he was one of those that appeared on TV to back it up. Once the election was over and the Congressional Hearings beckoned, they made him another offer he couldn’t refuse. If I were him I’d be checking my brake cylinders; neither would I be taking any aeroplane journeys.

    What the top brass didn’t account for was the fury of the grunts in the FBI who had found hard email evidence of Petraeus’s stupid indiscretions, when their top brass suppressed their findings. There exists sanguine rivalry and bitter turf disputes generally between the two agencies, so the fury over the possible breaches of sensitive issues that they share will be overwhelming in the coming weeks. They are already leaking like a colander to their mates in the media. Once the hearings start, the shit will really hit the fan. Today there is a new dimension: it has been suggested that Islamist ‘prisoners’ were being interrogated in the CIA compound in Benghazi and the assault on the ‘Embassy’ was in part to release those prisoners (and, of course, to celebrate the anniversary of 9/11).

    The permutations are endless. Take your pick. ‘Cherchez la femme’ is merely a peccadillo in this crazy fiasco. They may well have impeach Obama to clear up the mess. That should be fun. Civil war to follow shortly thereafter? Bwaaahahahahaha!!

  282. Frank –

    There doesn’t seem to be much fundamental difference between my somewhat simplified diagnosis and your more complex one. You refer to Petraeus’ ego and what you call Petraeus’ stupid indiscretions – but neither of which seem to me to be of much importance.

    I heartily endorse your suggestion that Petraeus should now be very careful indeed for his own personal safety. The unscrupulousness, lack of ethics and criminality for which Chicago used to be notorious has not only infected Illinois law enforcement and its justice system, but has begun to infiltrate places, courts and institutions outside Illinois.

    P.S. There are frightening parallels in Britain.

  283. Bradshaw’s bleating for Entwhistle is laughable. He’ll slip seamlessly sideways into another £150k + champagne socialist non-job in the lefty hegemony of fake charity, quangocracy, public sector, Common Purpose la-la land. And to think they whine about the old class system and “their” equality and fairness.

  284. Frank P @ 18.47

    “…neither would I be taking any aeroplane journeys” – or go paddling a canoe at nightfall.

  285. Mallfleur

    ” …or go paddling a canoe at nightfall.”

    Heh, heh, heh. Is he into that? I have a buddy who belongs to a Washington rowing club on the Ptomac, I’ll have a word with him.

    OTOH perhaps I’d better not; he may have been assigned to the task.

  286. Malfleur (13:28)

    “Publish and be damned”

    Petraeus is no Wellington, even though an old boot seems to have been his Achilles heel.

    Or as the Iron Duke himself would have said, “Ha!”

  289. Puerile question from young Blackburn over on Trolltopia:

    What can Teresa May do to Deport Abu Qatada?

    [Photo of TM – physiognomy resembling Tracey Emin’s unmade bed, wearing her tweeds, fake pearls and trying to look like Maggie – fuck-me-shoes not featured for once.]

    Pity her balls aren’t as big as her pearls, that would be a start.

    She has the entire Met. Police at her disposal, a prison van, three decent escort Q Cars – and I’m sure El Al Airlines would supply a suitable adapted aircraft destined for Jordan, but not guaranteed to arrive – Pilot and Escorts supplied with parachutes.

    Btw, Blackburn’s last para deserves a prize for unadulterated, sanctimonius, sopping wet balderdash:

    “These questions are difficult and confounding, especially given Qatada’s proclivities, hypocrisies and open animosities; but due process in these matters is a price of civilisation.”

    Does that hack really draw a salary for that clunky crap, or is he just on ‘work experience’?

  290. Malfleur (21:19)

    Goddit now! Sorry, I’m getting slow in my decrepitude. Thanks for the link, too. I’d forgotten about that.

  291. Frank P, Malfleur & others…

    Thanks for all these ver-ry interesting links that I couldn’t be bothered to go searching out for myself.

  292. Frank P

    More laugh out loud moments, I write it in full in case you thought I was going all Rebekkah and Dave over you, thank you.
    I knew Bradshaw’s father a bit (I thought at first you were giving his constituency, which I suppose you were, Ahem), Canon Treasurer at Norwich Cathedral, when I was a student and he was one of Lefties who was all smiles and docility until I asked him to actually back me up on some piffling thing to do with my digs in The Close, and he did that thing Lefties are so uniquely good at, he retreated with aggression! Which reminds me of a particular Evensong in the depths of a ball-breaking winter when some aged Canon read an Old testament Lesson which had the Choirstalls rocking by the end, and it went something like this: “And there came out of Egypt the Israelites, the Ammonites, the Shiites, the Hittites, the Ishmialites . . . . . . . (pause) . . . . . and all the other Ites and Shites!!” Well, if you’re sitting in a sub-zero Cathedral singing your 500th Evensong, such things are, well, a blessing actually!

    Night all.

  294. The Times has a front page item:
    “George Osborne has warned his party to back gay marriage or face losing the next general election.”

    I am waiting for the AoC elect to inform us that if we don’t return to a 50% tax band, none of of us will get to heaven.

  295. Anne Wotana Kaye1

    Blair & co put the judicial structure together and appointed the judges to the Immigration Appeals court what do you expect? Once the judges are appointed they can’t be removed without a constitutional crises so what does it matter who we elect?

    No one has commented on Margaret Hodge chairing the committee that questions the likes of Starbucks about paying low rates of corporation tax when her own family business, which is the source of her vast wealth ,does exactly the same:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/businesslatestnews/9668396/Margaret-Hodges-family-company-pays-just-0.01pc-tax-on-2.1bn-of-business-generated-in-the-UK.html

  296. The real “cuts”:-

    http://conservativehome.blogs.com/localgovernment/2012/11/haringey-council-employs-11-union-officials-but-just-gardeners.html

    Bar two independents the 58-member council is exclusively Labour Lib-Dem and for a flavour of what a modern council thinks it is responsible to control check out their A-Z. It spends £3.4m on publicity, surprising since its “client base” has no option to seek services from an alternative provider, but “publicity” is not listed on the A-Z.

    Are we over governed? You bet.

  297. Baron
    November 12th @ 13:44

    Malfleur is sorry to learn that Baron is hospitalized and hopes that he will escape being killed off for reasons other than those which put him there and be discharged soon. In the meantime, it might seem a good location from which to engage in Bill Whittle’s call to start building the horizontal/parallel virtual structures. In fact, this Coffee House Wall seems to be an embryo of the idea, so Baron would already appear to be engaged in some Whittling for England.

  298. Malfleur
    November 11th, 2012 – 15:07 Apologies for coming to this so late but I had to mention that I am a huge fan of Lord Black of Crossharbour. He showed me much kindness when I was in dire need.

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