The tax system needs overhauled, in two areas at least. I have no power to make this happen, just a vote and a blog so here goes.
TV license: should be scraped. I should make a FOI request to see how much the admin and enforcement costs. I haven’t as yet, so I’m gonna go ahead and use hyperbole like ‘Astronomical’ I’m not arguing that the BBC shouldn’t be financed from the exchequer and should tout for advertisers, im just saying that the way the money is collected is out dated.
Way back then most people didn’t have TVs so it was unfair to charge everyone for it, but now days every one has, and in fact those that don’t can watching on their mobile phones or computers anyway. We should scrap it and just pay the BBC from the Culture budget.
Car Tax: Should be scraped. We should follow the Australian model - people must buy a yearly registration which includes 3rd party insurance. Then we should up the taxation levy on fuel.
I’ve no doubt that he gets round to critising a lot the actions of the chinese government but im intially struck some of the opening chapter, specifilly this stat. From 1980-2000 china has managed to bring 400 million people out of poverty. 400 MILLION! , thats more than the population of the expanded EU.
I’m as concerned about human rights and free press as the next lilly livered liberal, but i wonder how many olympic tourch protesters were fully up to speed on the history of china in the 20th century. Principles of direct elections, free press and judicial independence are all well and good (not a sentance i ever thought i’d follow with a ‘but’), but, when watching the governance of an ancient county/culture of 1.3 billion maybe we should acknoldge achivement, and be willing to learn as well as teach.
No one actually cares about the environment, the sooner politicians realise this the better. People say they do, opinion polls, political talk shows and focus groups all rate ‘the environment’ as a big issue.
The truth is (says me, as if I know anything) that people like to say that the environment is a big touchstone issue but what they really mean is that they think they should care about it more, but in reality if it means an ounce more hassle or a penny more on the price of a gallon then it’s a no contest.
There are a lot of people who are really ‘into’ it, but its more of a hobby or indeed a hobby-horse. Generally people care about issues which directly touch them and the ones their loved ones. They care about the here and now, they vote for the political party which can organise a healthy economy in which themselves and their community can thrive, they care about education, healthcare and security - both personal and national. People are also charitable and generally care about the less fortunate (as there but for the grace…)… but only about things they can see happening here and now on TV. They like talking about other people’s responsibilities but they don’t want climate change to be avoided at the expense of the things which they really care about.
I think this is very probably true, and I don’t think this will very probably change.
Diplomats from around the world are gathering in Dublin for a conference that aims to secure a treaty banning the use of cluster bombs.
But some of the world’s main producers and stockpilers - including the US, the UK, Russia and China - oppose the move.
There is some controversy at the moment in UK military circles (at least as reported in the media) with some high ranking personnel campaigning for the ban and some against.
It strikes me though, what is it about a cluster bomb that is so unethical? It does its job quite well - kills people. I grant you that some of the bomblets hang around after the fact to affect unsuspecting passers by, but by and large a cluster bomb doesn’t kill as many people as an a-bomb or even the massive bombs dropped on buildings during the gulf war… not even as deadly, I propose than an AK-47 in the wrong hands for 25 years of its life.
Since when did bombs become subject to ethics? I doubt the receivers of any bomb payload ever think of the hardware as suitably moral in its construction.
is it not closer to the truth that most people find most weapons pretty unethical until the time comes when they need to use them. Cluster bombs might seem nasty until their use stops the proverbial hun from killing you and yours. In 1945 japan found out that the USA was planning to drop devastating A-bombs on their cities, they decided that it was ethical to use ‘waterboarding’ to extract information from POWs… the people who carried this out were eventually executed by the Americans for unethical war crimes… skip forward 50 years when the USA has similar fears about ‘them and theirs’ and the ethics of such a thing are is lot more grey. Such is life.
BBC Newsnight are running a weekly feature visiting various families in a little Virginian town called Culpepper. It will follow their views and opinion on the run-up to November’s US Elections.
It’s not the most interesting thing in the world, I must be honest but one thing did strike me. One of the ladies, a democrat, was asked if she would vote for Hillary Clinton. She replied that she probably wouldn’t because she thinks that it’s a job that requires a man, simple as that. She continued that there are just some jobs and decisions that she would rather see a man making.
It’s important to understand that this woman wasn’t a weak and submissive bonnet wearing 50s throwback, she was a smart professional go-getter. On further investigation they found this view to be not unrepresentative. I was very surprised, but then it hit me… they never had Mrs Thatcher. I just can’t imagine even the most misogynistic Briton or even European saying those things and the reason is surely Thatcher. It’s a whorey old cliché, but the best thing she ever did for women was becoming PM and then being a war-mongering tough-talking union-bashing battle-axe. No women in this country ever need to worry about being labelled weak and emotional just because of their sex… or at least you’d think.
Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher. In the 19th century he predicted that over the next two centuries, the philosophy of nihilism - purposelessness and despair - would take over the western world, leading to an unprecedented level of violence and worldwide war. Obviously, he was correct.
However, Nietzsche only made this prediction so that he could also put forward a way of defeating nihilism…ART.
To be more specific, Nietzsche recommended that the way of defeating nihilism was for each individual to treat his or her life as an ongoing and unfinished work of art. The simple work of “giving style” to ourselves, expressing to the world our “overflowing creativity,” would give us a way to “Say Yes to Life”. This, argued Nietzsche, would stifle nihilistic pessimism.
I like that idea… or at least the idea of that idea.
Something which recently struck me (which im sure everyone else has thought about at length), that under the Good Friday Agreement anyone born in Northern Ireland can claim Irish Citizenship. Fine by me, but should they still be able to vote in Northern Ireland (UK) elections. Or at least should UK Citizens not be allowed to vote in the Republic of Ireland elections.
A bit of classic West Wing, from the final series… the worst series certainly… but still great.
This episode was actually broad cast live, apparently they only had a basic script and pretty much did a live debate… it was great at the time, and is still pretty good on YouTube. I think i ended up wanting Vinick to win the election in the end, which said a lot that the show managed to keep ‘the oposisition’ so likable.
Again this is just a nugget of a thought, non parsed, ill thought out and under researched. What t’internet was made for! It’s a topic I’ve touched on before a little bit, so you’d think I’d have worked out what I was trying to say, but alas…
A week or two ago we’d some Jehovah’s Witnesses or something come to our door to tell us the good news that the world was going to pot, all we have to do is turn on the news to see what a state the world is in.
That kinda attitude disproportionally annoys me… how can someone claim that the world is getting worse? Bad things happen, but they always have and to say that the world is somehow ‘getting worse’ shows an embarrassingly naive knowledge of history.Never mind world wars, work houses, slavery, plagues… for goodness sake, its only 20-30 years since the world was on the cusp of complete nuclear annihilation… now that the threat of this has somewhat receded, can Mr Witness at least admit that a spate of stabbings on the local Points West news (the example he gave), while tragic, is small bananas… and the very fact that it makes the news, is a positive.
TwoBigYellowCranes (regular commenter) brings to light the tragic case of the man who was killed last week in Belfast, in front of his pregnant wife. I’m not saying that TBYC isn’t right to highlight this, but i remember the days, all too well when this wouldn’t even have got a mention on the local news, because of all the other tribal killings, shootings and punishment beatings. We do ourselves a disservice by not recognising progress. Sometimes the glass IS half full.
Well, the time has come. The lead story on the news at ten tonight will no doubt be “BONG:Question Monkey breaks his silence on the Archbishop Sharia row”. Doubtless some of the lesser informed hacks won’t even realised that I WAS keeping a silence.
My take on it is this, it very much depends on what he meant (duh), either it was a completely run of the mill comment which actually didn’t need to be said and it’s just an obvious truism, or it was a shocking affront to democracy and the rights of man.
I have a private members club, let’s call it Fight Club (patent pending), in this club all the members consent to occasionally having seven bells knocked out of them. According to the law of the land GBH is illegal, but the way we enforce law in these matters is very much down to consent - if you consensually choose to have someone staple your privates to the floor, then the law isn’t involved, if you don’t consent then it very much is.
I would though expect the police to keep a close eye on it to make sure every one really is consenting - and there should be no question of what the over arching law is.
So is this what the Archbishop meant, that we should respect and recognise marriages, annulments and arbitrations? If so, then I’ve no problem with it - and I really don’t know why it’s been such a big deal. I fear though that he meant more than this, that he’s suggesting that the law should in some way take into account peoples ‘faith’ and beliefs. The words ‘Thin edge’ and ‘wedge’ come to mind… I do respect people who stand up for what they believe in, like for instance when Quakers refuse to fight in WW2, but its entirely right that they should go to prison for a while… the law has to apply fairly to all no matter what hocus pocus you say you believe.
A better way for the Archbishop to make Muslims feel more respected and equal would be to disestablish the Church of England! It’s an anathema that a Muslim MP has to swear allegiance to the Queen when he or she enters parliament - as opposed to just swearing to fairly and honestly represent his or her constituents. I await the Archbishop’s response to my challenge
Its poor blogging to chat about stuff you saw on TV, it says something about a life wasted. But i am what i am.
There were two nice happy happy documentaries on last night, both set in the late seventies. The first was a Storyville special about the Jonesville Suicide death cult and the other was a historical look at America’s involvement in Afghanistan - which is topical I suppose with the release of the movie ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’.
First to Jonesville - this was one of the most depressing things I’ve seen. To give some background, Jim Jones was a cult leader/preacher in America in the late 70s who led a church called the People’s Temple. It was thousands strong, multi racial and counter cultural. A lot of the services were filmed, giving us lots of material of ‘healings’ and conversions and euphoric people selling their homes to give money to the church. Jim Jones then had a great idea to set up a new town in the South American rain forest and bring all his followers there. To cut a long story sort it all went sour when a congressman flew out there to investigate them (with some reporters)… all seemed idyllic until a couple of the members started passing notes to the reporters asking to be rescued… when they tried to leave Jones’ men shot and killed them along with the congressmen. This was all caught on film as one of the cameramen who died left his camera running.
It was gruelling to watch, especially then Jones then gathered up the 1000 people and told them that they would all have to die, and supplied the cyanide. There were no pictures of this but everything was taped through the PA system, letting us hear babies being wrestled from their mothers and poisoned, people pleading for their lives and ultimately the silence when everyone was dead. Three people survived by running into the jungle, and they told the story as we listened to the soundtrack. Gruelling. I’m not all that emotional or sentimental but I had to go and wake my baby son up to give him a hug after watching it - of course making him cry for the next half hour, doh!
Next was the retrospective from Afghanistan. This got my gander up a bit (always helpful when it comes to blogging). Some people have such a selective remembering of history, and are so accusing and self-righteous when using their 20/20 hind sight. In the late 70s when the world teetered on the brink of a nuclear holocaust which would have rendered the entirety of human progress and charity meaningless, the USSR invaded Afghanistan to set up a puppet communist regime. America decided to fund and assist the Afghan freedom fighters, a no-brainer really. But the narrative of this program seemed to be that American was stupid and immoral for backing the likes of Bin Laden and are now reaping a deserved whirlwind. Most of the interviewees were from countries who decided to spend their money on nicer hospitals and social welfare, and let bad old America step up to the plate of saving the world (hyperbole a go-go).
Anyway… this is too long a rant. All I’ll say is… if you travelled back in time to 1980 and told people that the Afghans they funded in the war against the USSR will turn on you after the year 2000, and you’ll get some problems with terror attacks, and a few thousand will be killed in New York. They would have run around the pentagon high-fiving saying… you mean we averted nuclear war!!?
A hundred thousand children in Northern Ireland are living in poverty, it emerged today. New figures published by the Northern Ireland Assembly also revealed that 44,000 of them are living in “severe poverty”. Committee chairman Danny Kennedy MLA said: “There can be little doubt that having more than 100,000 children in Northern Ireland living in poverty and 44,000 children living in severe poverty is unacceptable in the 21st century.
Not that I don’t want to believe the Bele Tele or indeed our esteemed assembly but, seriously? That can’t be true unless the meaning to the word poverty has been seriously degraded. To me poverty means the possibility of not having enough food today, no clean drinking water, living in a cold disease ridden squat, living on the streets picking a pocket or two, leaving school at 10, working down coal mines by the age of 12, parents dead from aids and your infected, life expectancy under 40 etc etc etc etc.
If any of these kids own an Xbox or can afford to buy McDonalds or have a myspace account… then as far as grumpy old me is concerned, they aren’t in poverty! Not because I don’t think the lives of people should be continually bettered, just that it completely downgrades the real poverty of children in Darfur, Brazil, Bangladesh, Angola etc .. it leaves people thinking aww those poor Brazilian street kids, they’re just like Jonty in Andersonstown who’s ma can’t afford to buy him a new iPod.
Relative poverty should be called something else, because I’m relativly poor compared to Bill Gates.
I’ve been dying to get one of these for ages… and I’ve eventually found myself one - not offa eBay or anything, just lying in bed thinking - flip, this whole existence stuff is a bit weird.
I must admit this may be fueled by the fact that my learn-ed brother in law lent me a book of esseys by John-Paul Sartre, which I’m loving.
In modern civilisation, lets say from the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago, people have been born, lived for an average of lets say 50 adult years then died.
So I am born, try my best to learn the history of all those 200 or so generations that have gone before me, do my little bit to be involved in the process of moving humanity on a little further, get together with another person to create another generation of people who grow up and learn the history of human kind (including the addition made (and being made) by my generation), I then shuffle off the mortal coil, having done my little bit.
I suppose this is Nietzschean ‘death of god’ thing… the thought that there is no overarching ‘watcher’ of the whole of history happening, the players just nip in for a while, do their bit, then pass the baton to someone else. A very few make a mark which reverberates through history, I wonder if will, probably not, oh dear that’s a bit depressing
A prize for anyone who guesses the amount of commas
The tax system needs overhauled, in two areas at least. I have no power to make this happen, just a vote and a blog so here goes.
The truth is (says me, as if I know anything) that people like to say that the environment is a big touchstone issue but what they really mean is that they think they should care about it more, but in reality if it means an ounce more hassle or a penny more on the price of a gallon then it’s a no contest.
There is some controversy at the moment in UK military circles (at least as reported in the media) with some high ranking personnel campaigning for the ban and some against.
BBC 
view to be not unrepresentative. I was very surprised, but then it hit me… they never had Mrs Thatcher. I just can’t imagine even the most misogynistic Briton or even European saying those things and the reason is surely Thatcher. It’s a whorey old cliché, but the best thing she ever did for women was becoming PM and then being a war-mongering tough-talking union-bashing battle-axe. No women in this country ever need to worry about being labelled weak and emotional just because of their sex… or at least you’d think.
Something which recently struck me (which im sure everyone else has thought about at length), that under the 
Well, the time has come. The lead story on the news at ten tonight will no doubt be “BONG:Question Monkey breaks his silence on the Archbishop Sharia row”. Doubtless some of the lesser informed hacks won’t even realised that I WAS keeping a silence.
I have a private members club, let’s call it Fight Club (patent pending), in this club all the members consent to occasionally having seven bells knocked out of them. According to the law of the land GBH is illegal, but the way we enforce law in these matters is very much down to consent - if you consensually choose to have someone staple your privates to the floor, then the law isn’t involved, if you don’t consent then it very much is.
First to Jonesville - this was one of the most depressing things I’ve seen. To give some background, 
when it comes to blogging). Some people have such a selective remembering of history, and are so accusing and self-righteous when using their 20/20 hind sight. In the late 70s when the world teetered on the brink of a nuclear holocaust which would have rendered the entirety of human progress and charity meaningless, the USSR invaded Afghanistan to set up a puppet communist regime. America decided to fund and assist the Afghan freedom fighters, a no-brainer really. But the narrative of this program seemed to be that American was stupid and immoral for backing the likes of Bin Laden and are now reaping a deserved whirlwind. Most of the interviewees were from countries who decided to spend their money on nicer hospitals and social welfare, and let bad old America step up to the plate of saving the world (hyperbole a go-go).
Anyway… this is too long a rant. All I’ll say is… if you travelled back in time to 1980 and told people that the Afghans they funded in the war against the USSR will turn on you after the year 2000, and you’ll get some problems with terror attacks, and a few thousand will be killed in New York. They would have run around the pentagon high-fiving saying… you mean we averted nuclear war!!?
