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Bad Science
Vacant slot
disinformation
EU Referendum
Gimcrack hospital
HMRC is shite
News Bleat
Old Holburn
Vacant slot
Snail's Tales
the freethinker
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Islam totally sucks links:
Gates Of Vienna
Islamist Watch
Jihad Watch
Creeping Shariah
Some of my essays
Last commenty thing that we could be bothered to create. (Lazy old git)
Links to items
Corny

Why are they so f* ridiculous?

A blog post we we were going to make if we could have been arsed

So that's where they all go!

Knots

More reality

More reality

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The next heroine of the velodrome

Treat people as individuals? How does that address the general problems?

Good

Yet another instance

OCD

Things that make us

Free tutoring

More sanity from Guardian readers

The questions that organised religions need to answer

xoggoth will solve it all

Bah

Chips on shoulders

Maybe the last of my kind

The wierd multiculturalism that treats all non-white culture as the same

Tranquiliser in a song

History

Fluent

Excellent

This stupid PC theatricality

On the other hand

A chance missed

What blithering crap!

Drop dead you ***

Can't get clearer than that!

Probably

EURO thingy

The burqa is fantastic

Comments we would have made had we been arsed

Best option

Another bloggoth idea becomes reality

Straying into a horror film

Wrong way round

Hadn't thought of that!

Big brother

Things we have discovered that nobody else seems aware of - 2

Firefly

Saturday

Awful but then

The consequences of conflict

Our so-called democracy is overwhelmingly about pointless gestures

How stupid can they get?

Could have been worse

Inconsiderate

Missed

Hmmm

Things we have discovered that nobody else seems aware of - 1

What a fantasy world they live in

 

Back to normal we see

Daft things that are now necessary - 1: Making phone calls to yourself

F* Chinese

Insect porn

Rare syndromes

More reality on immigration

Sorted

The same sense from both perspectives

Not hanging around in gay saunas

Death and stuff

About bloody time



Page 45

The ramblings of an old git

bloggoth Mission Statement:

          We aim to never raise our sights above the gutter and preferably to stay much lower

Corny

Went for a run today and the footpath went through a field of corn. We were naturally reluctant to enter; judging from horror films like "Children of the Corn", "Scarecrows", "Dark Night of the Scarecrow", "Jeepers Creepers 2", "Signs" and "The Stand" a cornfield is bound to be full of murderous youths, bat-like monsters, zombies, aliens and evil scarecrows. Fortunately, we got through it in one piece.

Phew! All that running gives us an appetite, time for a snack.

Why are they so f* ridiculous?

When challenged about continuing British aid to India, which apparently has enough spare money to send a rocket to Mars, a spokesman for the Department for International Development said " British aid is not used to fund India's space programme. Our development aid to India is earmarked for specific purposes like tackling child malnutrition, providing malaria bednets and secondary education for Dalit girls" Duh! That is just so ridiculous that the flaw in it hardly needs pointing out. Following the same logic, maybe we should be sending aid to the needy in Germany or Canada.

There's plenty of the deserving needy in our own country who have paid taxes and contributed to our economy in better times, like the sick people who are denied effective treatments that are deemed too expensive for example, but hell, let's not worry about them! Some are even opposing reforms for caring for the elderly which will cost £2bn and yet we can apparently afford to spend 12bn on foreign aid..

A blog post we we were going to make if we could have been arsed

Who owns your life?

So that's where they all go!

As we have mentioned before, we are having to spend a lot of time hanging around in Kemptown, Brighton, the gay centre of the UK, and have not noticed any indications of it whatever. There is a disco that has "pride" in small letters over the name but the gay image is slightly spoiled by a picture of a scantily clad woman on the poster underneath, looks like one anyway.

But last week we wandered down to the beach near the marina. To reach it from the main road above you go down some narrow footpaths that go back and forth among some dense evergreen bushes. Everywhere among these bushes there are little dens littered with newspapers and other stuff, we did not investigate too closely. Anyway, gay non existent readers of bloggoth, we suspect that's where you need to head for, take your own newspapers!

PS Aaaagh! Perhaps we should pop into one, it seems we must be gay because we like Sponge Bob Squarepants. Apparently he is a gay icon in the US!

PPS We were looking at Google Earth to see if we could see any of these little dens from above. Not really. However, we are sure non-existent readers will love this shot of the nudist beach nearby, Free porn! What could be better?

Knots

Like most people we are irritated by knots. You carefully wind up the lead on your phone charger or whatever before putting it away in the drawer but, the next time you need it, you again have to spend five minutes untangling it. We at bloggoth installed our supernaturally sensitive spy camera and can reveal who is doing it, as we suspected, it's the ghosts of medieval sailors! Look you bastards, practice your knots somewhere else!

More reality

Earlier this year, the foreign affairs minister of Ecuador, the crappy leftist country that has plainly given asylum to the twat Assange (pronounced Assaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaange with a cat-like mew) simply to annoy the UK/US, called for an end to colonialism in Malvinas, Puerto Rico and Guantanamo.

Ah yes, colonialism is awful, but how is the Falklands a colony? The usual definition of colonialism is when a foreign government occupies a state and imposes its rule over an indigenous people against their will. The only people living in the Falkland Islands are of mostly British origin who want to remain British. Imposing Argentine rule over them would be colonialism, not the end of it. The historical origins of this dispute are irrelevant, if historic claims that are centuries old are considered more relevant than current realities, then why should the Serbs not take back Kosovo? Come to that, how about those of Spanish origin in Ecuador getting out and giving the country back to the indigenous population they stole it from?

More reality

HMRC has published details of the 20 most wanted tax fugitives. No suprise, from the names and faces, that only 5 are white British. There is not a single successful business man whose business might have benefited the UK among them either, these are VAT fraudsters, tax fraudsters, smugglers, money launderers and illegal importers/makers of tobacco and alcohol.

When you actually look at the facts of crime, rather than parrot the PC nonsense, this is not at all unusual.

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The next heroine of the velodrome

We have been wondering how fictional or fantasy characters would have managed at the Olympics. Obviously, some superheros could not be allowed to compete against ordinary athletes; we couldn't let Superman into the heptathlon or The Incredible Hulk into wresting, it just wouldn't be fair. On the other hand, some characters are merely different rather than super. If major countries can take in athletes from abroad just to win medals why not other aliens?

Look at those legs and that incredibly streamlined head, no helmet would be required! We would certainly back Ridley Scott's Alien for a medal in the cycling events.

Treat people as individuals? How does that address the general problems?

Beats us why commenters should feel the need to be abusive to Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. Generally a sensible lady and a genuine moderate, according to our definition of the word, Muslim. She says, quite rightly, that if we object to non integrated communities, which she admits are a problem, we should also treat useful ethnic British citizens, like our Olympic medal winners, as British citizens.

But it is ignoring valid concerns that breeds extremism and blanket abuse of whole groups. Judging from polls and comments on the online press the number of people with right wing views has rocketed in recent decades and we know people who used to be very liberal on immigration who have changed their views entirely. People have simply had enough of their concerns being ignored because those on the other side of the argument, like the last Labour government, the money grubbing bosses who want to pay wages that are inadequate to live on and who expect welfare to pay the shortfall, the one worlders, the open borders brigade, the UAE nutters etc, have made all the running. Even the most valid concern, based on fact, was dismissed as racist. In the circumstances it is scarcely surprising that people, unable to object to some individuals or specific sections of certain groups, should oppose them in their entirety. A plague o′ both your houses!

When it comes to generalities the far right's views often bear a closer resemblance to reality than those of the liberal left. Mo Farah may be brilliant but anyone who points to him as being representative of the usefulness of Somalians in the UK generally really is living in cloud cuckoo land. Winning some big sporting events over the next few years is not compensation for the taxpayer having to foot the bill for this community, 40% of whom are dependent on welfare, 80% of whom live in public housing and who have a not insignificant involvement in violent gangs and terrorism. Not as bad but the usefulness, taken as a whole, of some other larger groups lags well behind the British average too.

Does it actually make any sense to judge people as individuals unless we know them personally or unless they are celebrities, like major newspaper columnists or Olympic medal winners, that we can read up about? When you feel afraid to walk parts of London or Bristol at night because of the black muggers, when you are nervous standing on the tube next to some Asian guy with a rucksack, when you keep checking your wallet to be sure it hasn't been knicked by some Romanian pickpocket, when you worry about your young daughter's safety in parts of Birmingham, does it really help to remind yourself of the nice ethnic guys you know, to tell yourself that the great majority aren't muggers/terrorists etc? It does not alter the fact that your quality of life, the one you had before these people arrived, has been diminished.

These things are about statistics, they are about normal distributions. For example, most Muslims do not support terrorism but it is a fact that the normal distribution of Muslim attitudes on things like the role of women, democracy or secular society is significantly shifted from that of the white British towards what we would call religious conservatism. Only a minority of Muslims may support honour killing or the idea of a religious-based government but those minorities are still much higher than among the rest of us. It is a nonsense to regard extremism and terrorism as something entirely separate from Muslim attitudes as a whole. They may be the very thin end of that normal distribution curve but they are still a part of it.

Opinion polls do not seem to have been around in the Victorian era but if they had been, doubtless many would have been in line with some minority attitudes today. Many would have supported a subordinate role for women, a strong role for religion in the state, criminalisation of homosexuality and absurdly (and equally hypocritical) repressive views on sexuality generally. We hoped we had moved on a little in over a hundred years but now we are being taken backwards, why should we be expected not to resent it? Are a few olympic gold medals really adequate compensation for a society that is going backwards?

Good

The Independent bemoans the harsh sentences handed out to last year's rioters.

We are not generally in favour of simplistic criminal laws. Every sentence needs to take account of the circumstances and severity of the crime and, most importantly, the danger of future reoffending. First time offenders and those who really make an effort to improve deserve more leniency than habitual criminals. But there are wider considerations, including the deterrent factor. The usefulness of tough sentences as a deterrent on others has been much debated and arguments appear to be more a matter of political viewpoint than actual fact. However, if the riots really did suck in some usually law-abiding, intelligent, educated people one might hope that those at least would take note of sentences handed out this time around and avoid getting involved next time.

16 months jail for taking an ice cream? Yes, harsh but, if it stops just a few shops and businesses getting looted or burned down next time around, maybe it's worth it. As for the deportation, we do not have a duty to keep foreign criminals. End of story.

PS Ah yes, "He stole the ice cream after leaving court where he faced charges for an unrelated matter". Clearly we are losing a useful sort there.

Yet another instance

Routine sexual harrassment of women in the streets of Brussels has been reported in a video, with the author reporting vile comments 8 or 10 times a day. Sure, women get harrassed in London, as that link reports at the end, but not (yet) on that scale.

What is different between London and Brussels? Even without reading the article or seeing the video that is obvious to anyone who does not live in a PC dream world, Arabs! This isn't anything new to us, we recall problems in a Paris Station in the late 60s, among other occasions, when some Arabs kept pestering me and a girlfriend. *Note 1 Another girl I hitched around Greece with for a while a couple of years later had been to the Middle East, forget exactly where, and said it was a nightmare of constant groping and verbal abuse of a sexual nature.

Of course the author of the video has been accused of racism for revealing that most offenders are of North African origin but that is simply the reality of it as this Islamic site reports and these attitudes to women by Arab migrants to Europe reflect those in North Africa. The US state department, in its advice to tourists, warns of the scale of the problem in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Jordan. It used to warn of the same thing in Libya although that is now such an uncertain place that harrassment is the least of a US citizen's likely problems. Can't check Algeria, Lebanon and Syria are they are now such dangerous places that US citizens are warned not to travel there at all.

Only some richer Gulf states like Bahrein appear not to have this problem. Not a consolation as Europe doesn't get too many migrants from the rich and well governed Arab states like Bahrein or Oman anyway; another obvious fact that the supporters of mass immigration choose to ignore is that the best, most useful people from prosperous, successful countries don't need to emigrate. Open the doors too wide and what you mostly get are the failures or the uneducated, desperate sorts from poor or failed nations who bring the attitudes of their backward and broken societies in with them.

Yet another illustration of the way immigration is taking European society backwards. Not that we should mention it obviously. Heaven forbid!

Note 1: It was ok, in the end I let her off the leash and Crash Helmet beat them up!

OCD

The only forum or internetty social thing of any kind that we ever bother with is Contractor UK and the other day there was a thread on OCD. We conducted our usual thorough research on the subject, a 5 second scan of Wikipedia, and found that "Symptoms of the disorder include excessive washing or cleaning". Ah! We're ok then! We have two pairs of underpants for the month and wear them on alternate days. Hang the unworn pair up to air for a day and it's fine! Stains? Who cares when nobody is likely to see them? That concern is only for the young who might get lucky now and then.

Another symptom of OCD is hoarding and one keeps reading news stories or seeing TV programs about extreme hoarders. We do have a lot of bits and pieces, although we would reject the idea that we are a hoarder, we only keep things that are likely to be useful. Just this week we found a use for some rubber patches from a motorcycle tyre repair kit we kept after giving up motorcycling about 15 years ago. When you do get rid of stuff there is satisfaction in that too. We have been doing a lot of clearing out of the attic recently prior to some insulation work and agonising over what might be useful. There are some very difficult decisions, who knows when you may need them?, but when you do chuck out that 1992 street map of Dalgety Bay or that serial port backup tape for a Windows 95 computer it is immensely liberating.

Almost addictive actually. One never hears of such cases but are there people who suffer an excessive compulsion to declutter as well?

Things that make us

The conventional wisdom is that we are largely defined by our childhood experiences. Hell, yes, nothing makes you quite so detached and unloving as being a kitten fought over by parents who hated each other but were too inadequate to find any other solace, being made to feel guilty for any time you spent with the one and not the other - it was never both. What prepares you for life better than coming down for breakfast and finding your parents rolling about on the kitchen floor struggling for control of the claw hammer? They are both buried in cemetaries near Brighton somewhere, I keep feeling I ought to know where, normal people surely would, but I have never bothered to visit.

An underestimated effect is that of our adolescence and early adulthood. This is the time when we first really experience being free individuals in our own right, we explore the world on our own and discover what we are capable of. It is only when we are not protected (?) by parents that we come up against the challenges due to our own limitations and find our own ways of dealing with them. Sometimes we can change enormously from what we thought we were, sometimes we can overstretch ourselves and fail disastrously. It doesn't matter, it's all learning and nothing we do should ever be a matter of regret.

Childhoods vary but what is indisputable is the commonality we have with those of our generation, those with whom we shared adolescence and young adulthood. In real life or in the news/internet whatever, this is clear. Sorry you WW2 sorts, you punk rockers or whatever, we don't think like you. It takes listening to some ancient cassette tapes, on an old cassete player linked to an old amp (all dug out of the attic) to realise what really matters to us and what made us. Something In The Air, Free love, Woodstock, Times They Are a Changing, all that stuff. Yes, it was all crap, nothing changed really and it never will, not for the better anyway. Man's nature won't change and ever increasing numbers of too many fucking men will keep on dragging us down. That's reality but who cares about that? What has meaning for us is more important.

If we going to have to spend the rest of our life alone, maybe that would be the time to go back, just take off and travel round other countries living on next to nothing again, never knowing what the next day would bring.

Free tutoring

If you post questions on technical forums, it is only reasonable that you should post any solutions you find to help others or answer any other questions you happen to come across if you know the answer. Trouble is you get the occasional person who, once they discover your email, think you are their personal tutor and bombard you with questions. We had one chap a few years back who, after we posted some guidance on CUK about end of year accounts, would regularly send us loads of emails at the end of his tax year asking how to calculate his balance sheet, corporation tax etc etc. In the end we said sorry, retired, our accounting/tax expertise is now out of date. Boring enough doing your own we don't want to spend hours on somebody else's.

We have now been emailed for guidance three times in a day by an Android beginner setting up his first project. Simple enough questions so far sunshine but don't push your luck!

More sanity from Guardian readers

"Guardian readers" is a term of abuse from the sort of right wing who prefer to simply dismiss everything The Guardian says without actually bothering to read it. These people have the same stupid mentality as the leftists who immediately dismiss something as untrue simply because it is in The Daily Mail. Their perception is that The Guardian and its readers have double standards, being liberal about immigration but curiously silent about the appallingly illiberal third world practices that some migrants have brought with them.

Not so, take a look at the comments here regarding a German court's decision to outlaw male circumcision. The great majority support it, good for them. No "liberal-lefty" defence of the practice in this Guardian article either. High time this practice, by either Jews or Muslims, was banned throughout the EU.

PS Unless you live in a high HIV country there are few proven health justifications for infant circumcision, a balanced medical comment is here. There may sometimes be a good medical reason for infant circumcision in specific cases but that is not an argument for performing it routinely for religious or cultural reasons.

The questions that organised religions need to answer

A creator is as good a theory as any and, after all, nobody can disprove it. It's just some established religions and their idea of a loving god who is interested in the salvation of every individual that makes no sense whatever. These are the main questions they should be answering.

  1. Why would a loving god make man jump through hoops rather than just put him in heaven in the first place? Whether the story of Adam and Eve is literal or allegorical, the clear notion is that god deliberately tested man by placing temptation in his path. What parent would place a treat in front of a young child, tell him he mustn't touch it and then throw him out of the house when he did? This god appears less loving than a normal human being, his actions are more like those a cold scientist experimenting on rats to see how they act.


  2. Why would there be a tree of good and evil anyway when an omnipotent god should be capable of eliminating evil? Or perhaps we should ask why he deliberately created it in the first place. If evil did not exist before Satan, what was it that drew the former angel from the path of righteousness? If evil existed before Satan and god created all things, who could have created evil apart from god? How can a creator of evil be entirely good?


  3. How is it just to condemn all men for sin equally when many things that make a man what he is, his genes, growth in the womb, nutrition, upbringing, brain damage due to disease or injury and psychological damage due to stress and trauma are entirely outside his control? If it is far harder for some to be righteous surely they should get some credit for the extra effort they have to make, yet nowhere in the religions of the book is there any indication that sin is relative.


  4. Why are practices like promiscuity, attacking other tribes and driving out or eliminating rivals and their offspring, sinful for man but not for other social animals like Apes, Lions or Meercats? If animals have no souls they cannot be following a path of evil so these behaviours can only have been given to them by god, their creator, to ensure the survival of their species. At what point in evolution did these essential survival skills become sins? Was it global at some point in time or are these practices still ok for those living in poorer societies where survival is tough?


  5. If wisdom comes from god who knows all things, why is there nothing in the words of any prophet or in any good book, that shows any knowledge whatever outside of the time and society in which they were said or written? This lack of foresight matters. Presumably Allah, for example, knew of the future problems of drugs. Why did he not not warn against all substances that affect our thoughts, rather than just alcohol, and stop some young Muslim men from being drug abusers and claiming it's ok?


  6. If a just god expects man to do his will, surely it is only reasonable that his will should be clear? Yet there have been many religions and many branches and sects of those religions, all with different versions of what god requires of us. Even within branches there are differences, many Catholic parents do not follow the church's views on contraception for example. Is it a child's fault if he is taught the wrong thing? How is it just to condemn a man for not following the right path if he has not been properly informed as to what the right path is?


  7. How is that revelations are so limited by time and place? Don't the souls of people born before the prophet/saviour or those who live far away and never hear his words matter? Some try to get round this question by claiming that truth is revealed to all but, if that was true, why would religious education be necessary at all? The reality is that different parts of the world have seen the evolution of completely different religious beliefs, indicating that it is human invention and interaction that evolve religious beliefs, not the words of god.


  8. What is so special about your beliefs? Millions today have religious beliefs that are different to yours. Millions who, like you, believe that only their path to salvation is the true one, can cite "proofs" and advance "logical" arguments that their beliefs are the correct ones. No reason to suppose that they are any less intelligent or rational than you, so why is it that you are right and they are wrong? Or could it be that you all twist your sense to suit your emotions?


  9. What about the many changes in faith throughout history? For example, most Christians now accept the scientific evidence that the Earth is not the centre of the universe and would say that that idea is not central to Christianity but 600 years ago it certainly was and such beliefs might have got you burned to death. If your beliefs and priorities properly reflect the will of god, how can they be so different to those of people in your church hundreds of years ago?


  10. Why has god mysteriously stopped performing miracles, appearing to the faithful, rumbling up mountains and handing out sacred scrolls since science has had the ability to record such events? If god wanted us to know the truth and follow his path then surely he should be making his existence and his wishes clear and putting out regular adverts on TV rather than rely on boring, poorly attended sermons by kiddie-fondling priests?


  11. Why is there not a single thing in any good book that demonstrably shows that divine intervention or prophecy has ever occurred? They may contain historical or geographical facts, that is hardly surprising and is true of any fiction, but where is the proof of the religiously important parts? We have all seen the "proofs" from the holy texts but to regard them as proofs you mostly have to assume meanings of vague phrases, ignore or distort real facts, or dismiss explanations that don't suit. People manage to find predictions in the drivellings of Nostradamus and other soothsayers. Look at any of them without bias and they are nonsense. A few things ring true but no more than one would expect from coincidence and that isn't good enough. If the scriptures are the infallible word of god, everything in them should be true.


  12. Where is the evidence that man has a special place in the universe? What is the point of the countless things that do not affect us, from distant comets to ocean floor dwelling worms? Why have the lowliest species been given the same survival techniques as man and even allowed to prey on him? Were dinosaurs god's chosen creatures when they were dominant or is it more likely that man is just another species that has come along and will eventually vanish in his turn? To an omnipotent, all knowing god who created the whole universe, the distinction between man and other higher animals would appear far, far less than that between an Amobea and a Paramecium would appear to us, so is it likely that we have any role that other living creatures do not?


  13. Why is god's will and purpose always unfathomable when anyone asks awkward questions but crystal clear when it comes to the trivia relayed to us by other men? How is the mean-spirited little god of the Talmud, Bible and Qu'ran, the Jehovah who turned a lady into rock salt for looking back, the Christ who got angry at money changers, the Allah who tells us how we should wash ourselves after going to the toilet, remotely compatible with this mighty creator of everything that even the most intelligent of men cannot begin to understand?


  14. If love of our fellow man is supposed to be a major goal, how can the good men who attain paradise apparently be so indifferent to the fate of those suffering in hell that they can be eternally happy? How would a good man be concerned about those in this world who are merely hungry but not care about those in eternal torment when he passes to a "higher" existence? The obvious logical explanation is that what we call love must be an earthly limitation and therefore one that god cannot possess. At least that explains why he apparently doesn't give a damn about the suffering of souls in hell either. He could end it, unlike us, but does not.


  15. Some will also say that religion has positives for mankind, but where is the evidence that religion improves man's behaviour in any way? Why do many religious countries, like South Africa, Mexico or Bangladesh, have far higher levels of violence than more secular countries like Western Europe or Japan? Why are both Muslims and Catholics overrepresented in UK prisons? Even when relative poverty is not an issue, how does religion moderate men's behaviour? Why does conservative Pakistan have one of the highest levels of internet porn access? Why is sexual abuse of boys so common in Afghanistan? Why are Catholic priests at least as likely to abuse young boys as anyone else? Why are alcohol-related hospital admissions for Pakistanis in the UK slightly higher than for the white British? Why were girls mistreated for decades by nuns in Ireland? Maybe one should also ask how some aspects of religion, the subordinate role of women for example, can possibly be regarded as positives even in theory.


  16. How can your your scriptures be the word of god when they are such nonsense? Take the Story of the arc. How could one man and his family build an 41,000 M3 vessel complete with suitable storage for about 60,000 land-dwelling vertebrates and 1m invertebrates and find enough food to feed all of these species for 40 days? How could a flood cover the entire world when there is not enough water in the atmosphere, oceans and Earth's crust to do so? Why did god have to use a flood that would kill all land-dwelling creatures when man, the only creature to sin, could have been despatched with a plague.? If there was just one of every beast, including man, wouldn't a proportion of them have died of natural causes before reproducing? What did all the carnivores eat in the months before any offspring appeared? How could every species have repopulated the earth from two individuals without a host of genetic defects appearing? How did animals on the other side of the world, across oceans, manage to reach the arc? This text was clearly written by a man with only the limited knowledge of the time and not one iota of divine guidance.


  17. Greek philosopher Xenophanes observed that gods of different peoples always resembled them and had their motivations. Greek gods tended to be fair-skinned and blue eyed, while African gods had darker skin and darker eyes. If truth is absolute, why are religions so slanted to particular cultures? Why is the Jewish/Christian/Muslim God always a bearded white man? Is your god racist? Or is that you, like all men, invent the god you want and can identify with?


  18. Look at the more modern religions where information is available and they are stories of fraud or delusion. Like Ron hubbard, a second rate sci-fi writer and incompetent ship's commander who had to be relieved of his command yet who, according to him, lived an astonishing life and was warmly received as special by everyone who met him. He invented Scientology as a way round restrictions on an unlicenced method of psychiatry. Or Adam Smith, who, when the translation of the golden plates was lost, came up with a completely different version of that actual history and immutable wisdom. Or Joanna Southcott, whose expected messenger from God turned out to be a phantom pregnancy and who left a box that contained a few odds and ends including a horse pistol. Of course we can never know anything for sure about Muhamed, Christ or Moses after millenia but, given the phoney nature of more recent religions, can we be sure beyond doubt that those men, even if they existed, were not frauds or delusional?


  19. Some will say it is wrong to ask such questions, that we should have faith, recognise that god acts in mysterious ways and that his purpose is too complex for mere man to understand. But why did he grant us the powers of observation and reason if he did not intend us to use them? Since understanding the mechanisms behind much of his creation clearly is within our capability, where exactly is the transition point between science and faith that we are not supposed to pass?


xoggoth will solve it all

A couple of items back we mentioned digging a whole lot of maths modelling/ simulation notes and listings out of the attic. We can't bear to chuck them out (did Leonardo Da Vinci throw out his masterpieces when he stopped painting?) although they are probably no use at all now for their original purpose.

But, as my fellow devotees of The Blessed Perry (Praise be upon him) will agree, that is not to say that they are no use at all. We have long toyed with the idea of using our expertise to create a mathematical model of mankind that will accurately predict all social events throughout the world. This is not an original concept, just Google "simulation human behaviour" or similar, but what gives we at bloggoth the advantage is our novel realisation that nothing more closely parallels behaviour of the human masses than some of the processes that go on in complex chemical plants. Take the remarkable parallels between the behaviour of gases and liquids in a fractional distillation column and that of successful and unsuccessful pupils in the educational system, for example. We won't insult the intelligence of our educated non existent readers by explaining it further.

Of course, it will require a massive amount of work on our part to adapt our chemical engineering models to the purpose but just to show it is possible, here is a very simple equation we knocked up, based on the ideal gas law, to calculate reaction of the liberal left (RPC) to a very trivial or unintentional racist remark by a white person.

RPC = FUSS
        0

Obviously the corresponding equation for their reaction to a violent or criminal action by an immigrant is:

RPC = 0

Bah

In a world of umpteen billion and the internet it is very difficult to think of anything original. Why not "smell no evil" we thought. Bah! Someone has already done it as a tea-shirt.

Chips on shoulders

You see so many cases where inadequate minority employees with a chip on their shoulders blame everything on racism and many of us have encountered them at first hand. Of course there are actual cases of racism but one has to wonder about the validity of allegations in places that readily employ minorities in the first place and/or where other ethnics seem to be valued employees.

This seems to be one of those cases. In the first comment, clive loves gills alleges that this footballer's record was very poor, that he did the bare minimum, that he had chances to go on loan but nobody wanted him, that the fact that he did not get private treatment for injuries was because they were minor rather than career threatening. According to the comments here he was a piss poor striker, scoring only 5 goals in 352 games, depite being highly paid, and that other black players, like Ade Akinbiyi who scored scored 29 goals in 67 games, were both valued and popular.

There may be a point of law, as it says here, that Gills were in the wrong to sack him for claiming racial discrimination, in itself (legally) an act of discrimination but what of the rest of his story? Without actually finding a record of the tribunal we can't know for sure. Did any other black players back up his claims? Is it true that other, more valued, black players have had private treatment? Were useless white players treated as badly? Who knows? All we know for sure is that a) if you hand out excuses to blame everyone else and make a quick buck some will jump at the chance and b) conflicts like this are conflicts we never needed to have.

Immigration is about displacement, the British quick and dirty fix. Let's take in foreign players to avoid spending money on encouraging our own youth like the Chinese have the good sense to do. Dutch, German and Australian national sports teams don't seem to have needed large numbers of ethnic players to succeed either. Outside of sport, why not grab employees from poorer countries who won't complain about poor wages and bad conditions rather than let our own youth share in the prosperity that their ancestors helped to build? We used to have no shortage of taxi drivers, shop keepers and traffic wardens before those became mainly ethnic minority jobs and we still wouldn't have a shortage now if they had never come and pushed our own out. How long before the majority of bar/restaurant staff are East European? Oh yeh, hard working etc etc, but the funny thing is that ten years back we had mostly white British staff in those jobs too and you know what? They all seemed perfectly polite and competent, to us customers anyway.

The unecessary multicultural nonsense that the self-serving bosses and the liberal left have afflicted on our society over so many decades has been an expensive, divisive disaster. If mass immigration had never happened the UK would be a more prosperous and a pleasanter place by almost every measure.

Maybe the last of my kind

The missus needed a file box and I remembered I had one in the attic. It was full of notes and program listings from my days in mathematical modelling and simulation of oil and gas plant and power stations, both nuclear and conventional. Two-phase multi-component flow networks, boiler control systems, distillation columns, compressors etc. In the highly unlikely event someone wanted me to do that now I would have a job getting back into it.

But maybe they will start phoning up us geriatrics soon, because who else in the UK can do engineering anymore? Who else but the nearly senile would be stupid enough to want to do it anyway? Such skills have been undervalued for many decades in the UK and those in the financial or legal sectors typically earn twice as much for a less complex job. Their rates also continue to rise while those for engineers and scientists have fallen in real terms; when I gave up contracting in 2007 the going rate in pounds for the sort of work I did was scarcely different from what it was when I started in 1992. There has also been a decline in the decent jobs available, because so many major British manufacturing companies like ICI, GEC/Marconi, Lever Brothers, Blue Circle or Harland and Wolff got taken over/merged and asset stripped by the Dutch, the French, the Yanks, the Norwegians or whoever. It seems we are now not capable of building our own power stations anymore and have to go cap in hand to the f* Chinese. Even many of our utility companies are foreign owned.

We have a few world class major companies left, like Rolls Royce, but how long will that continue? Our national denigration of production, not to mention an awful lefty education system that fails to encourage success, has so reduced the flow of science and engineering students that even our successful companies may be threatened by a failure to recruit staff in the UK as this article says.

By 2020 there is a replacement need across all engineering, science and technology of something like 2m people. The median age of the chartered engineer is currently 57 years and is rising at a rate of 10 years every 14 years that elapses.

We have three suggestions for our stupid government:

PS Any engineering companies needing my ancient expertise, please contact me at xoggoth Towers. I will get back to you as soon as I can find my reading glasses.

The wierd multiculturalism that treats all non-white culture as the same

The Olympics opening ceremony was pretty good although, as expected, there really was to much multicultural PC crap as MP Adrian Burly commented. There has been the usual predictable response to his comments although many would agree with him. Like many other public figures who were too honest in the heat of the moment, he has been pressured into backtracking, saying he was not objecting to multiculturalism, only the handling of it during the ceremony. Not object to multiculturalism? I bet he does really and so he should, multiculturalism is a nonsense. A society functions best when it has a shared history, culture and sense of values. Multiculturalism is division pushed together to maximise conflict of interest.

The ceremony crammed over 250 years of British history into an hour, with both world wars represented by a brief silence, but they found time to bring in the Windrush. Looking at the faces of all the performers, the pop music clips and the main acts, black culture appeared to figure rather a lot. Apart from a brief reference to Danny Boyle's own film Slumdog Millionare we saw very little of other minority cultures - no significant Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Chinese or other European content that we noticed. This situation is not unique to the Olympics, visibly ethnic minorities are over represented on TV, in adverts and in the media generally but the faces are most often black. Apart from a handful of well known newsreaders we see few South Asians on TV, either in programs or in adverts and it is rarer still to see Chinese or anyone else from the far East.

This is probably because modelling and acting are things that blacks like doing and they are not so hampered by religious conservatism and language difficulties that affect some other groups but how come the underrepresentation of these other minorities doesn't seem to worry our PC elite? Why are they not setting quotas for Sikh, Pakistani or Chinese models and actors? How come they needed a huge nod to immigration and multiculturalism at Britain's greatest event of the century and were satisfied purely by mention of Jamaican migrants, some Rap music, a lot of Dizzee Rascal and an inevitable appearance by Doreen Lawrence? Were our Sikhs and Hindus, on every statistic a much greater asset to the UK than Afro Caribbeans, happy with that?

Liberal leftist ideology is full of double standards. Their absurd multiculturalism allows non-whites to cling to and defend their own culture while denouncing whites who do so as racist. It demands respect for individual cultures but appears to treat all non-whites as if they were one people and is indifferent to the differences. Their motivation appears to be opposition to Western culture rather than a genuine respect for, or interest in, other cultures.

What's that Mr Singh? Why was there was no mention of the contribution of Sikhs to UK society? But there was loads of stuff! - very early on we had Milly singing My Boy Lollipop. Wonderful!

Tranquiliser in a song

It isn't a great favourite but we discovered a long time ago that The Air That I Breath by the Hollies has a magical quality. Do you ever get some stupid song in your head and you can't stop humming/singing it? The stupider the song the more it tends to stick but don't worry, just sing The Air That I Breath, and it will be entirely driven out. But while it drives out other songs it does not itself get lodged in your brain. The magic actually goes further than that, if you are worried about something and can't stop thinking about it over and over, The Air That I Breath can chase a lot of that away too. Works for us anyway, don't ask me why.

PS We used to have hair like that.

History

Took the missus to see the Olympic torch go through the local town. It is a historic occasion so we took a few photos on our cheap camera. Here's the best one.

What's that dear non existent reader? You wanted to see a photo of the boring torch? Oh, allright then, don't say we at bloggoth do not bend over backwards to accomodate our numerous fans.

PS Going back to the important picture, note how we thoughtfully blurred out the images of the children in the background in case their parents might not want pictures of them on public display.

PPS And one on the left was f* ugly. Don't want to spoil a nice bum picture.

PPPS Mmmm

Fluent

As non existent readers will know, a main purpose of xoggoth's pathetic little life is to annoy the missus. Today we unlocked a new skill that takes annoying to perfection. Since childhood we have had a knack that nobody else we have met possesses, we can utter a constant stream of words for long periods without any hesitation or repetition and taylor them so that they sound grammatical and poetic.

After just a couple of vodkas this afternoon we found a new dimension to this skill, we can do it in any major language, or at least it sounds like it. If the missus asks if we want a cup of coffee we respond with a long diatribe in pseudo Chinese/Russian/Welsh/Spanish etc.

Yes, we are a genius!

Excellent

So somebody cut off the Microphones before Bruce Springstein, the most tedious American singer ever after Leonard Cohen, and that boring McCartney twat had a chance to thank their audience. Police state? They are lucky Commandant xoggoth was not in charge of this concert, we would have cut off the microphones before it even got started.

This stupid PC theatricality

The John Terry decision was the right one given that no actual witnesses, not even the complainant, could testify to hearing his words. It will be a very sad day for Britain if (when) even the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" is overturned to suit cultural sensitivities. And what did this pointless trial over mere words cost the British taxpayer? Up to half a Million pounds according to the DM, money that could be better spent pursuing real criminals. It is not as if Terry would have got off scot free without the trial, FA action in fines or bans would cost him far more than a £2500 fine, mere chicken feed for a top footballer.

All this is totally counter productive for race relations. Yet again, Britain is picking up a huge bill because of an unrealistic one-world idealism that ignores the realities of tribal human nature. Most Britains who are actually affected by immigration, rather than the rich bastards who boost their profits with cheap labour or can afford to live in the posh areas away from the ghettos, never wanted this absurd multicultural mixed race society with all the conflicts and expensive non-solutions that it has brought us. Many will be justifiably annoyed at another huge expenditure because some black feels offended by words while, in news on the same day, they learn of yet another dangerous black criminal from a violent black nation being given leave to remain in the UK at their expense. Too often we see all this expensive hooha about a trivial bit of supposed white racism, while the enormous and real cultural problems of blacks from some countries, the fatherless children, the low acheivement, the street crime and the vicious gangs, should not be mentioned. If they are, they have to be blamed on exclusion or failure to address their needs despite the facts that the problems are mirrored in those countries of origin and that other ethnic groups who go through the same systems manage to do significantly better than the white British.

Given a multicultural society that was forced on them against their wishes, the double standards that pertain to race relations and the burden of costs that absurdly overused equality and race laws places on them, it is hardly surprising if many see all blacks as perpetual whiners who prefer to bleat about racism rather than address their own significant problems. High profile, expensive cases over trivia like this one and all the heat it has generated on Twitter are not going to help those decent blacks lower down the heap who genuinely are trying to get jobs and who really may be facing racism.

Apart from the newspaper owners, the only group who benefits from all of this are the PC middle class, it greatly raises their smugness levels.

On the other hand

Regarding that foreign rapist piece of shit and all the others like him, it is a pity, since our leaders refuse to protect the British public who pay their inflated salaries, that we do not have a vigilante group who will do it for us and eliminate them. Unfortunately, any far right group would probably be rather indicriminate and vigilantes generally will not have the expertise to always get the right person whatever their motives. Still, if they did only target the offenders and always get it right, it would be fantastic! The public would feel much more secure about immigration and maybe the decent migrants, given that they are most likely to be the victims, would often be relieved too.

It may seem an odd assertion that a violent nationalist vigilante group dedicated to protecting British citizens would improve race relations but that is exactly what it would do!

A chance missed

Needless to say, we at bloggoth heartily approve of a Cologne court's ruling that the circumcision of young boys could be considered a criminal offence. According to a survey most Germans agree with it too. No, it is not the "worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust" but a valid objection to a disgusting 3000 year old piece of barbarism. It is quite absurd that civilised countries which have strong laws to protect children from physical and sexual abuse should waive them without argument whenever irrational religion is concerned. Looking back on it, it is quite clear that the Roman Catholic Church missed a trick.

Topic: A chance missed       Comment here.       Comments so far: 0

What blithering crap!

This is yet another bit of nonsense that is spouted regularly, that the UK will lose influence by being outside the EU.

How is being part of some huge group where our opinion counts for very little having influence? It is obviously true that the EU as a whole will have more influence than the UK but that would only be to our advantage if it was exercised in a way that suited the UK's interests and, given we are but one of 27 members, the disparity in their economies and the fact that we are not the most economically powerful nation, that chance is vanishingly small. We have already seen how other leaders of the EURO nations were quite happy to destroy our banking sector to salvage their idiotic project. Being part of the EU just means our needs are likely to be ignored before we even get to negotiate with those other nations.

Maybe we should apply to be a state of the US or merge with China. Just think of the influence we would have on the world stage then! People like Barossa do not seem to have an ounce of rationality anywhere in their egotistical idealism-driven brains.

Drop dead you ***

We might watch a bit of the Murray match and, until Scotland does their own thing, shall support the British player. Not every true Brit will, decades of politically correct bollux have left too many British unwilling to support their own country. The missus bloggoth supported Ferrer in an earlier match because she likes him as a player. A jolly nice chap, we daresay, but that isn't the point, he was a Spaniard playing a Brit! We have nothing whatever against the Spanish, friendliest people in Europe in our experience but, since he was playing a Brit, he just had to be GREASY!

Now Murray is playing Federer. Switzerland, hmmm. Been there twice and had no negative experiences and can't actually think of a single nasty thing, justified or otherwise, that people say about the Swiss but, since one of their number is playing a Brit, we will have to think of something fast!

Update: BAH! Sweaty, swindling, swiney Swiss!

Can't get clearer than that!

Businesses have complained for many decades that UK taxation is far too complicated and that the rules are not clearly explained. I was doing my P11D last minute this morning and was not sure if my sister's subscription to The Society of Authors, which she needs for genuine business reasons, was subject to Class 1 NICs and found this guidance on HMRC's website. There was a really helpful flowchart that explained it all:

Beats me what those people are complaining about.

Probably

As we have said before, "racist" assumptions about crimes are often correct. That has more than a little to do with the fact that when the majority make such assumptions they are basing them on knowledge of previous similar incidents. Such conclusions may not be the result of thorough research, may not have been subjected to statistical analysis, argued in a learned report or been subject to challenge by learned peers but, being based on at least some fact, are a lot sounder than the ideology driven, fact free, knee jerk assertions of the politically correct.

The possible extinction of yet another rare species in Britain is a minor crime by most peoples' standards and only matters to nature addicts like us but we are betting this minor crime, assuming the scale is not being exaggerated and significant numbers are actually involved, is another benefit of those marvellous hard working Eastern Europeans. Why? Because a) Never heard of it happening in previous decades b) they are disproportionately involved in illegal poaching and depletion of our wildlife generally and c) because they are the ones with most awareness of this trade, given that 99% of snails eaten in France now come from central and Eastern Europe. No certainty of course and, given that nobody except us nature freaks is interested, we may never know but Sherlock would certainly be exploring this possibility.

Another "racist" assumption many will have made concerns the stabbing of a youth by a large gang of youths in a crowded shopping centre. It's an assumption that, from the victim and given that most violence is between those of the same ethnicity, is already starting to be confirmed. A bit like this one 2 years ago on Victoria station or various others, just Google "london stab gang youths" and click on any of the top links. Apart from the fact that they occurred in the presence of numerous witnesses and probably CCTV, about as dim as a crime can get, what else do they mostly have in common? You can call it racist if you like but is it really so daft to be guided by previous realities?

Taking all crimes, our assumptions are not necessarily discriminatory. If there is a drunken brawl at closing time on a Saturday night or a fight after a football match, if a very young child is snatched off the street, if a car gets nicked by joyriders or an old lady is conned out of thousands by a rogue builder we assume, with a fair degree of accuracy, that the miscreants were white British. It is just that, under the racist logic of what is laughingly called ant-racism, we are not allowed to apply past experience to minority crimes as we can to those of the white British.

Obviously we at bloggoth love to be PC so mention of the Victoria stabbing needs an immediate antidote. Did we mention the stabbing of Stephen Lawrence by a racist white gang in 1993? We need to be reminded of it, the press hasn't mentioned it for three months.

EURO thingy

Not a football fan but we did watch a bit of the UK's exit match as even sport haters should support their nation in these things, a bit anyway. On the plus side, it was good that the dire predictions of overt racism at the EURO football events did not pan out, black sportmen like Ashey Cole and Ashley Young should not have to put up with that sort of thing EVEN IF THEY DID BALLS UP THEIR PENALTIES! What people think in private is another thing.

PS It's supposed to be Balotelli.

PPS OH NO! it's Wimbledon now and then the sodding Olympics. Hurry up and legalise assisted suicide please!

PPPS We have no idea how we managed to put 2014 instead of 2012 but can't be arsed to change it.

The burqa is fantastic

Not the idea of women being forced to wear it by their shitty male dominated religion, just the general usefulness of such a garment in keeping out the world in other contexts, given that another damn family occasion is looming. With just a few embelishments, like some 6 inch nails stuck on and some barbed wire wrapped around it, the burqa would be the perfect garment to prevent being hugged or kissed by ghastly relatives! Where can we buy one?

Comments we would have made had we been arsed

Nowt to add to most comments of the sane Sky readers to this article. We need a bit more of that sort of Texas over here.

Best option

No surprise to anyone sane that the "Arab Spring" is not going so well in Egypt. The place is still run by the military and the next president could be a henchman of the former dictator. Hardly seems a promising start to democracy. If they looked a bit further back they would find a real Nelson Mandela figure, a former leader who is so well known and loved throughout the world that millions go to see him on his rare global tours. Not only that, but when this great man was running Egypt it was among the world's most advanced and powerful nations. Who could possibly be better?

They should stop messing about and make him president straight away. President Tutankhamun! Fantastic! Ok, he's a bit dead but better than an Islamist anyway. Great to have an Egyptian leader unencumbered by all the baggage that shapes the others too.

Another bloggoth idea becomes reality

Are governments spying on us using insect size drones? You read it here first.

Straying into a horror film

Walked another 6 miles or so today doing my footpath inspections and, naturally, photographing lots of weeds and little animals on the way. Just doing a footpath in a huge field and saw someone just off to my left and a bit behind. I did not look closely but, from the small dumpy build, I had the impression it was a woman. Stopped to photograph a small red flower and she hung back, a bit cautious of getting too close to a strange bloke in the middle of nowhere I thought. This person kept trailing me and at the bottom of the field I turned and looked and it wasn't a woman but a quite hideous little bloke, with a lopsided face like something from a horror film. As soon as he saw me looking he turned and limped off and just at that moment there was a lot of howling from the nearby bushes.

Yeh, let's be logical. Some unfortunate disabled worker at the nearby farm checking I wasn't the one damaging their fences probably. As for the howling, it could have been a fox, although never heard one in broad daylight before. Or did we truly have a narrow escape from a corny Hammer House of Horror film?

There is a real life horror association with that particular path too which ends at Stonelands, formerly a major hostel used by the Scientologists. My sons had to share a school with the children of the slaves of Ron Hubbard who went there. I heard that one week the head mistress had to send them all home because they were crawling with lice. That was probably the least of the problems those poor kids suffered.

Wrong way round

Not a subject or a speaker we would willingly listen to given a free choice but, once again, we could not totally miss it because it was stuck in front of us on the big screens at the gym. That utter twit Ed Milliband was saying at the Leveson enquiry that no organisation should control so much of the media as Murdoch did. The non existent lefty reader of bloggoth may say that sounds like a sensible comment on the face of it, that it is not democratic if a single group has so much influence over public opinion.

In this instant media age, influence does not work like that and it has not worked like that for a very long time. It is possible for the media to slant very specific events but, when it comes to our broad perspective on major issues, it is not the case that we read simply anything and have our viewpoints modified, rather it is the case that we choose to view what we broadly agree with. The results of a readership survey are here. Just why is it that, among the easier to read papers, the more right wing ones, the Sun and the Daily Mail outsell the left wing Daily Mirror (including the Scottish version) by a factor of three? Why is that, among the more serious papers, The right of centre Daily Telegraph and The Times outsell the more left wing Guardian and Independent by a factor of two? Why is the online Daily Mail the second most read newspaper site in the world after the Huffington post?

One reason and one reason only, they better reflect the opinions of the British electorate. Maybe when twats like Milliband (only less laughable political figures merit stronger insults) complain about the influence of major newspapers on public opinion they should perhaps consider that what they are complaining about is the concept of democracy itself. This is no surprise coming from the left, free choice has never been their favourite concept.

Hadn't thought of that!

A few posts back we commented on the rather pointless nature of the Camoron drive to have gay marriage in the UK when most gays aren't really interested given that they already have civil partnership. This seemed to be nothing more than a pointless argument about use of a word and we suggested that it was simply raising antagonism against gays by the religious. Today we had more comment from the CofE on this issue; they feel that the measure could cause a clash between church and state that may result in disestablishment.

What? Do they mean that religion would have no formal role in the affairs of state? That we would not have church figures being handed an unmerited influence in our society or unelected bishops determining our legislation on the basis of the nonsensical bollox in an ancient book? Do they mean we would not have to read or listen to any more liberal leftist crap from the Arsebishop of Canterbury?

Splendid! We at bloggoth are suddenly all in favour of gay marriage. Come on gays!! Enough of your apathy! Where is your spunk? Get out there and fight for your rights!

PS Obviously we know where their spunk probably is in the literal sense, ie up some other bloke's arse. "Where is your spunk" was a figure of speech, as in "show some courage". We just want apathetic gays to pull their fingers out and start actively supporting this change to the law.

PPS Obviously we know where their fingers probably were in the literal sense....

PPPS to PPPPPPP..S. They need to get behind it, get stuck in, keep pushing. Obviously...

Topic: Hadn't thought of that!       Comment here.       Comments so far: 0

Big brother

The government has plans to install smart meters in very home. The Daily Mail says this may leave us open to cyber attacks and will be used by government to spy on us. They are probably right, where governments are concerned the most paranoid ideas are usually the accurate ones. Due mainly to the immigration-fuelled population increase we are already having to have water meters installed and we wonder when those will turn smart so they can monitor, not just how much water we use but when we use it. Maybe we will end up with smart meters on electric, water and gas supplies and security systems and the information could easily be analysed in real time, to build up a picture of everything we do, when we get up, eat, wash, use the toilet, go out, go to bed etc.

During various droubts and oil crises we have had restrictions on water and energy use and you can be fined up to £1000 for using a hosepipe during a ban. Currently in the South East we have a different sort of utility related emergency. Clearly, while the problem with this pumping station exists it would be advisable to reduce the amount of sewage that it has to handle, so perhaps the government should consider restricting "bathroom visits" in Kent. Given smart meters on all utility supplies they could easily detect when someone was in violation of the order.

Things we have discovered that nobody else seems aware of - 2

The face is less handsome/beautiful and looks older on the left hand side (although obviously our left is still very youthful and stunningly fantastic). Also minor health problems such as spots, tooth decay, saggy bits or lumps are more common on the left hand side. It makes you wonder if there is a real basis for this left=evil, right=good religious stuff.

Firefly

While relaxing in the conservatory we at bloggoth and the missus bloggoth sometimes play silly memory games, like who can think of most names of songs/books/films with an animal in the title. Last night we did elements, earth, air etc and I thought of this one. Good, TB was.

Saturday

Been retired from mainstream IT contracting about 5 years now but Saturdays are still special. In the week I still have that feeling that I should be doing something productive, these days that's usually something involving weeds or bugs for the Android apps or printed materials, buggering around with the business website or, worst of all, doing accounts or filling in tax forms. On Saturdays I don't HAVE to do anything except fanny about. Is everyone still programmed to work schedules long after retiring or is it just we at bloggoth?

Awful but then

There's been an awful lot of comment about racist attitudes in Ukraine in the run up to Euro 2012. This is nothing unique to that nation, the problem is widespread in Eastern Europe; just today we had news about abuse of Dutch players in Poland.

There is no point in having international sport if visiting teams are expected to put up with abuse. Law-abiding visitors and tourists of whatever race should be able to visit any country without being subjected to this sort of thing. Most in the UK probably also have no objection to reasonable numbers of whatever race becoming permanent residents or citizens if they are law abiding, English speaking, accept our major values and are high earners who add to our GDP per capita.

Unfortunately, anti-racism is one of those things which is never subject to sensible limits. Every nation on Earth is permitted to have and promote a sense of national identity and a national culture and put its own people first except the white Western nations. The only alternative to crude racism we ever seem to be offered in Western Europe is a ridiculous pretence. We are expected to be happy to allow in huge numbers of unskilled and unchecked people from corrupt, crime ridden, backward and religiously conservative nations and if we object to any aspect of this influx, no matter how valid our objections may be, we are treated as if we are no different from those Neo-Nazi monkey-chanting football fans in Eastern Europe.

Being practical, very few from ethnic minorities in the Ukraine will ever be attacked because very few will ever go there and no sportsmen would need to be offended if international sports associations exercised more sense. We, on the other hand, face ever growing costs; to enforce business-damaging laws to tackle supposed racism and discrimination, to provide welfare for " disadvantaged groups", to meet cultural sensitivities and address the supposed failures of our systems to meet minority needs, to tackle increasing levels of crime, to fund an NHS stretched by a host of imported health problems and to rebuild areas of our cities burnt down in race riots every ten years. We may even be putting the secular future of our nation at risk.

Given only these two alternatives, maybe the Ukrainians would be wise to just keep turning a blind eye to those genuinely racist attitudes. We hate to have to say it but "Carry on making your monkey noises lads! It may be an appalling abuse of successful people who are clearly no problem whatever but you at least will have a nation of your own long after ours has disappeared".

The consequences of conflict

Can't find the link now but some Indians are getting rather pissed off with the continual use of the word "Asian" in the context of grooming of white girls. Can't say I blame them, if I was in an Asian country and they kept referring to crimes by Albanian gangs or whatever as European I would be pissed off too. I daresay Albanians would be similarly pissed off, quite rightly, if the term was always used to describe drunken British louts.

Those disproportionately responsible for this and some other major crimes, like car crash scams, are not Asian, neither are they Muslim, as Bangladeshis are not particularly involved in major crime, they are Pakistani. Even more specifically, grooming is a Midlands/North West crime, there does not appear to be a major problem in most of the South East where ethnic minority crime is overwhelmingly by blacks and Eastern Europeans. This article in the Independent suggests that the problem is narrower than one of any single nation:

Ray, who is from a Pakistani community in Birmingham, interviewed Yasmin Qureshi, the former specialist sexual offences lawyer who is now MP for Bolton South East. He noted that most of the cases of grooming by Asians occurred in the North and Midlands, which is where in the main immigrants from Kashmir settled to work in the factories and mills. The MP concurred. "In the south... there's more integration between communities," she said. "You very rarely find a school that has 80 per cent of one nationality. The people who came and settled in the south came from a much more educated, literate background... You can't take away from the fact that a lot of people come from Kashmir where some of the communities are culturally quite traditional."

Kashmir is not just a very traditional part of Pakistan. Along with the border region of the Punjab, which also raises a lot of Google strikes in connection with violent attacks and British crime, it is a region of some instability and this is another factor that impacts on crime abroad. Turkish crime in the UK is disproportionately Kurdish. Sri Lankan crime in the UK is disproportionately by Tamils. Gang crime is a problem among those from Somalia but not among those from Ghana, although the numbers are not greatly different. This link applies to our culture too, much of the organised crime in Northern Ireland has its origins in the conflict. You invariably find that organisations set up to fight for political goals will use crime to fund those goals and in the end the crime itself become the main purpose. Both the conflicts and the crime inevitably have a deleterious impact on the nature and abilities of all who live in a region.

Following independence, Pakistan was a richer nation than India but there has been a relative decline year on year and much of that decline has been due to instability and violence. It has become worse due to the insane actions of the West in Afghanistan, the effect it has had on hardening attitudes in bordering Pakistan and the resulting increase in extremism. This too is inevitably spilling over into the UK and we are probably seeing the impact already. It was the case, a decade or two ago, that Bangladeshis were the lowest acheiving minority group in the UK. Now, if you examine the GCSE records you find that they get more GCSEs at A* to C grades than Pakistanis and that bodes well for their future.

If our authorities had any sense, a major criteria in checking for suitability of migrants would be the stability of the region they come from. Fat chance!

Our so-called democracy is overwhelmingly about pointless gestures

A couple of weeks ago we had to hang around in the UK's gay Mecca, Kemptown in Brighton and no, it wasn't in a gay sauna! Even if we had wanted to go to a gay sauna we didn't see one anyway, in fact there wasn't a single thing to indicate a gay area, all the blokes looked normal, no mincing, no huge moustaches. Probably because the UK is fairly tolerant, homosexuals in the UK feel no great need, outside of an annual march, to continually flaunt their sexuality.

It is no great surprise, therefore, that there is little interest in Camoron's intention to have gay marriage. This is just another pointless gesture, look at us, see how "tolerant" a Conservative governemnt can be. Trouble is, it just raised a lot of heat that was quite unecessary and made the religious less tolerant of gays, not more.

No chance of any effective policies on issues that do concern people I suppose, like a referendum on Europe, cutting immigration or revising the nonsensical human rights legislation? Thought not.

How stupid can they get?

The best article we would have written had we been arsed to do so is once again in the DT. The best solution to the EURO crisis is to end the EURO, not only can the economic problems not be worse than continuing like this, but the demon of future conflict in Europe that the europhiles like to invoke will be lower not higher.

What do they think is going to happen to attitudes in Europe if things keep on like this? What will the Greeks and Spanish start to think of the Germans if an artificially high currency keeps destroying their economies? The Greek tourist industry accounts for nearly 20% of the Greek economy and has been decimated by the recession elsewhere and the perception of unrest caused by riots in Athens. If they had the Drachma back, the lower cost would bring holiday makers back from the UK and elsewhere. What are the Germans going to think if they have to suffer inflation and tax rises to prop up what they see (rightly) as the lazy southern nations? As the history of Yugoslavia since the break up of the Soviet Union surely shows, simply welding diverse societies together by force does not create a common nation. The way these unrealistic fools cling onto their ridiculous ideal that a united Europe can be forged in a few decades is making a new Hitler more likely, not less.

Fools and ridiculous are entirely appropriate words in this context, no matter how many PhDs these idealistic nuts may have. They have no grasp of reality, no understanding of human nature, no comprehension of what life is like outside their privileged spheres, no ability to appreciate facts and no capacity to learn from history. Over and over again, our lords and masters do the most ridiculous things that make no sense whatever and they appear surprised when they fail. Creating a common currency between states with no commonality of economy or attitudes, no common laws and no effective control despite all the warnings was just one, they ousted Hussain who was the only thing stopping conflict between major Islamic beliefs that had already been the main cause of wars in the area and were surprised when major conflicts broke out, invaded Afghanistan to restore order when Russia and Britain had totally failed before and were astonished that it acheived practically nothing at enormous cost.

We agreed with some rare wisdom from Stalin a few posts back and now we are beginning to have some sympathy with Pol Pot who had vast numbers of the educated intellectuals of his country executed. If we had a nation of less educated people who relied more on their own instincts and gut feelings rather than impractical idealism we might have much sounder policies than we do.

Could have been worse

Quite how you make a solemn occasion out of a lot of miscellaneous boats floating down the Thames I am not sure but the BBC has received a lot of flack for the trivial, celebrity-ridden nature of their Jubilee coverage. Excellent! Just as well Gary Barlow was in charge of the Jubilee concert rather than we at bloggoth. Our finale would have seen all the celebrities being made to fart God Save the Queen. Cliff Richard would have been splendid.

Inconsiderate

The arrangements for today's carriage procession have been altered due to the Duke's bladder problems. They had to change them at the last minute the first time the 1902 state landau was used due to Edward VII developing appendicitis just before his coronation. Inconsiderate bastards! If a family and a whole hosts of hangers-on are handed the high life simply because of who they are then it's not unreasonable for them to turn out come hell or high water to please their daft adorers. Bladder infections, appendicitis or death are no excuse in our view.

How are we ever to wean loafers off welfare when they can see people getting unimagined luxury simply because of their ancestry? It is true that a non executive president might not be any improvement when you look at the self-serving absolute arseholes who tend to get these positions, can you imagine having someone like Blair as president? Some corrupt bastard raking it in because of his connections is not exactly a good role model either.

Maybe the solution is not to have a person at all as head of state, there are other figures that represent Britishness and are loved by the British. They would not say or do anything, other than wave, as that would allow them to be manipulated. They would just be rolled out on all the top occasions and cheered by the crowds. They would never fail to turn up due to illness and, best of all, they would be really cheap. Here are a couple of suggestions for the new head of state:

A 15 foot high model of Winnie The Pooh. What could better symbolise Britain, or at least the Southern middle class bit of it that matters, than A A Milne's creation?

The corpse of Bruce Forysth. A much loved national treasure symbolising, not just the inanity of modern Britain, but also its diversity as Brucie has never been caught out voicing a racist statement *Note 1 like most celebrities. To guard against any possibility of corruption he would need to be dead and then stuffed to guard against the other sort.

Note 1: Or an inconvenient truth about our wonderful minorities, which is the same thing obviously.

Missed

Some of the local jubilee stuff was good. The beacon lighting last night was a bit naff, they had a job setting light to what seemed to be a bit of damp moss up a pole. On the other hand, we did quite like having a tank go past our house. We had hoped they would fire a shell through MR PIKEY SCUM's front window but you can't have everything.

Hmmm

Hard to be sure but couldn't help noticing in TV and press pictures that there appeared to be low levels of participation by ethnic minorities among the crowds at jubilee events. This is Hackney. This is something that is noticeable over and over again at European events or places which are about European history, culture or heritage; at historic buildings, traditional art exhibitions, at the Proms or at Andre Rieu's much televised concerts for example.

Is this ever-increasing lack of cohesion and common interests in our society a positive thing? Only if you live in a leftist dream world. No, actually, I mean a pampered middle class Western pseudo-leftist dreamworld. The true Left were always more sensible:

"A nation is a historically constituted and stable community of people formed on the basis of common language, territory, economic life, and psychological makeup revealed in a common culture"

Who said that? Joseph Stalin.

Things we have discovered that nobody else seems aware of - 1

  1. Binoculars are just telescopes. You can see through one lens and the other is just to double the price. It's why things look so one dimensional. Try it for yourself. Focus on a view then put your hand in front of each lens in turn. You will find with one that it makes no difference.

  2. If nothing is coming the other way and a temporary traffic light has a small box on top, flash your lights to change it.

  3. Open your scanner and watch the LED bar move across. Now move your eyes rapidly and you will see bright flashes of primary colours.

  4. You can keep most flies out a conservatory/greenhouse by using a net with a wide mesh that they could easily get through.

  5. If you hurt your right big toe you can get a pain in the b*llox.

What a fantasy world they live in

There's a lot of talk of tighter union, stricter rules, etc but economies are not just about written laws and checks by bureaucrats, economies are about people, they are about attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things down to the very lowest level. You don't change those in months, years, decades or even centuries.

How many centuries has England been a single nation with a single currency and the same laws? Yet look at the different economies in the North and South. Even if the EU leaders can get together and cobble together some fiscal pact it won't sort the problem.

 


TIME FOR A RANT! says Zebedee

Back to normal we see

Ken Clarke was always an arrogant cunt in previous ministerial positions, taking account of nobody's opinions but his own, but he did seem to have improved this time round and on occasions has seemed quite sensible. However, the claim that only extremists want a referendum on membership of the EU is taking arrogance to ridiculous levels even by his standards. One can't imagine the saner EU enthusiasts like Nick Clegg making a comment like that. He also claims that opponents of the EU ignored the results of the previous referendum in 1975 but then that was a referendum based on a total lie, people voted for an EU that they were assured was little more than a trading association, not the undemocratic, one size fits all, super-government that it has so clearly become. US States and regions of Indonesia have more independent control of their laws than the "nations" of Europe have. This time around, people know the truth of it.

It is rather curious that those who denounce others as extreme and unrepresentative of the public are always the ones who refuse to allow the British public to voice their opinions. A referendum costs money but, by comparison with most government expediture, much of it wasted on things few of us support, it's peanuts. We managed to find the money for a referendum on a stupid voting system that had no clear advantage over the current system just to appease the Liberal Democrats, so why can't we find enough for something that has far more support? So what do you have against the idea Cunt Clarke? If only extremists want to leave the EU then the UK will vote to stay in and that will give a huge boost to the EU ideal and allow people like yourself to proceed with integration even faster. You should be in favour.

The problem obviously, apart from the fact you are you an arrogant cunt who cares about nobody's opinions but your own, is that you are a fucking liar. You know full well what the majority of the public think and, like EU fanatics generally, you are determined never to consult them.

PS The above sounds almost as sweary as The Devils Kitchen but people like Clarke are enough to raise anyone's ranty level to boiling point.

PPS Oh!! I see the The Devil's Kitchen expired a long while back. Never agreed with his aggressive Libertarianism, sometimes there do have to be limits on individual freedoms for the common good, but it's a shame nevertheless. He was right about one thing, most politicians are total cunts.

Update: Damn! Now he's being sensible again by saying we need a ‘free, aggressive and irreverent’ press which holds government to account. Don't you just hate people you hate when they are not being hateful? Quite a contrast between that statement and his denial of free decision to the electorate come to think of it, so presumably this freedom of expression is about things he agrees with. Hypocrite. Ah that's better, we hate him again!

Daft things that are now necessary - 1: Making phone calls to yourself

Like many I daresay, we keep an old mobile phone in the car/van for emergencies or in case we forget to take the new one. Problem is with unused PAYG mobile phones, if you don't make an outgoing call for six months they suspend your account, so every few months you have to use it to call yourself. We hate unsolicited phone calls.

F* Chinese

This time they have gone too far! They have wasted xoggoth money! On a couple of occasions our internet got really bad and we even splashed out on a new router in an attempt to solve the problem. Recently the problem recurred and after activating the log function we find it is probably due to repeated TCP packets from a single ISP located in Bejing, China. These attacks happen constantly, 14 bursts in the last 10 hours. The router blocks them but apparently if you get too many of these scans it becomes a Denial of Service and can reduce internet performance and even take the router offline. BASTARDS! A quick Google shows that such attacks from China have been going on for years and nothing is ever done. We have emailed the provider requesting action but there won't be any. Agree with more than one commenter on that link, I think it is time we put a ban on letting China have any internet.

They also have an astonishing disregard for intellectual property, using unlicensed copies of Windows and other software, selling pirated DVDs and fake designer goods on a huge scale. In the West most fake designer goods come from China and fake DVDs are disproportionately sold by illegal Chinese migrants.

China makes a big pretence of creating new laws to tackle copyright theft, software piracy, counterfeiting and internet fraud but in reality they turn a blind eye to the huge ongoing scale of all of these. Their impressive growth is in large part that of parasites, they grow by theft and fraud and by leaching on the ingenuity and creativity of others.

PS And the

slitty-eyed bastards sprinkle ground up Tiger bones on their cornflakes every day.

PPS We utterly disapprove of the slitty eyed slur above. Shame on you Phillip!

Update: The BBC's Fake Britain this morning had an item on fake brand name baby carriers this morning, of such poor quality that they can give way suddenly and deposit the baby head first onto the pavement. Not that the manufacturers in, you geussed it, China, would give a fuck.

PPPS Actually, after watching that we do utterly disapprove of the slitty eyed slur above. Well done Phillip!

Insect porn

it's that time of the years when we at bloggoth can spend our time watching NICE little creatures, like this gigantic Hornet in our shed. Going from that decking screw securing the roof (a typically brilliant bit of xoggoth DIY) it measured 33mm, not counting antenna.

Talking of screws, our main interest is watching little creatures AT IT. These mayflies, which come in red and blue varieties, although they look identical in all other respects, are AT IT all over our garden pond. We love that thing they do with one's bum stuck to the back of the other's head, how does that work? Obviously it does because there are so many of them. Equally obviously we are envious and in subsequent lives we want to come back as all sorts of different animals so we can explore all the various ways of being AT IT.

Rare syndromes

One is always reading about some unfortunate person with a rare condition, bones growing in their muscles, premature aging, faces covered in growths, legs turning to tree stumps, being allergic to everything, growing thick hair all over, having striped bodies etc There is even one where people resemble vampires, they are badly affected by sunlight and their teeth get longer!

Some things affect behaviour rather than the body, like Pica where people have an urge to eat non food substances, Alice in Wonderland Syndrome where they have strange perceptions of scale, Jumping Frenchman of Maine Disorder where the startle reflex is greatly exagerrated and includes jumping, shouting and waving the arms and Walking Corpse Syndrome when people are convinced they are dead.

We at bloggoth can relate a little to Pica. We remember being thrown out of class once because we were eating our exercise book and all our text books had little bits ripped off the edges. Latin text books were particularly tasty we recall. Nowadays, if we have to do any rewiring was are quite partial to chewing a nice bit of cable insulation. Who needs cable strippers when we have teeth? Fortunately, we usually remember to disconnect the cable from the mains first.

Nowadays however, the one we most commonly suffer from is One Left Out Syndrome. If we have finished some DIY and packed away the tools in the garage we will always discover one screwdriver we overlooked. After turning on the washing machine we always find one smelly sock that we missed at the bottom of the linen basket. This syndrome is really annoying and it is high time the government allocated funds to find a cure for our condition. Our initial research indicates the symptoms should be greatly alleviated by having large ladies sit on our face at regular intervals.

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More reality on immigration

Nice to see council tax payers money is being so usefully spent, this time it's to improve communication between Eastern Europeans and the police in a Sussex town. So why is it necessary? The figures in the article explain that, Eastern Europeans are only 4% of the population of the area but account for 18% of arrests. The real crime figure is probably even higher given the difficulty in dealing with suspects who have no English and the slack that migrants are given due to "cultural differences" that mean they fail to understand our laws. Will the cost of this police operation and others like it be a negative in the calculations of how wonderful and useful all migrants are? Of course not, why should the failings in our own systems be held against them? One thing you soon learn by reading official reports is that any apparent problem with any migrant or minority group is due to our own failure to cater properly for their cultural needs.

As in this report from the Runnymede Trust on the fact that black pupils are the lowest acheivers in our schools - "We would assert that the failure is in the under-achievement of the system in providing for black students" Funny how Indians manage to do so well under the same system, it's rather like results of those culturally biased intelligence tests that discriminate against black New Yorkers but not the Chinese, Indians or Ashkenazi Jews. They are a devious lot, these racist educationalists and psychologists.

Sorted

We at bloggoth have not been to the dentist for years and wish we had never been to one. Looking into our ancient mouth, it looks fine except for the places where dentists have messed about, all those horrible black fillings and the crumbling crown at the back. The gums are most receded next to fillings. Teeth are much better if not being drilled and stuffed with toxic materials to remove a miniscule bit of decay that would heal anyway. (If tooth decay even exists, we are not convinced) This evening a bit of crappy filling fell out behind a front tooth and the sharpness on the tongue was very irritating so we stuffed a bit of Blue-Tack in it. Now it feels great!

The same sense from both perspectives

We were going to have this link from the right of centre Daily Telegraph as this week's "article we would have written if we could be arsed" and then found this one in the left of center Guardian that is saying much the same thing, how's that for balance?

Obummer, Hollande, the new socialist French president, and others are calling for growth. It is not inconceivable that state spending can promote growth but it has to on the right things, stuff you will have to pay for eventually anyway and infrastructure and measures that helps businesses; in the UK we could use some British built nuclear power stations and better roads for example. Unfortunately, while Hollande's plans include a few sensible measures, like separation of domestic and investment banking, there is also a lot of typical socialist bollux in there, like restoring retirement age to 60, new anti-discrimination laws and creating more public sector jobs. The more sensible measures are hardly relevant to the Greek crisis in any case since the Greek economy is far too corrupt, wasteful and scewed to the inefficient and bloated public sector for such limited actions to work; there are only two choices in the medium term, either Greece gets out of the EURO and take the consequences or the German taxpayer has to keep on footing the bill for all their wastefulness. We agree with the DT/Guardian, WTF should they? It is true that Germany played a major part in creating this ridulous single currency but then I am not sure that is a good argument for penalising ordinary German taxpayers or destroying Europe's most efficient economy.

In the long term, no economy can go on spending what it does not have and no economy which is unduly scewed to public expenditure can ever work, since the crucial economic restraints of the free market are lacking. Some disagree, Ed Balls has said that "the best way to grow the economy out of difficulty and increase tax revenues was to invest in, rather than cut funding to, the public sector" If there are any solutions to the Eurozone's problems the best way to find them is to listen to whatever utter crap Ed Balls is spouting and do the opposite.

Not hanging around in gay saunas

We had to hang around Brighton (the UK equivalent of San Francisco for the benefit of the occasional US non-existent reader) so went for a run on the beach at nearby Rottingdean and photographed weeds. There was a bit of graffiti at the far end of of the esplanade next to the warning sign which we thought mildly amusing.

Death and stuff

More and more our dreams seems to be scripted by Stephen King. As usual with dreams we cannot remember all the details but last night we all had alternative versions of ourselves who did all they could to have accidents. They had the accidents but it was we who died. Bloody bodies kept tumbling out of places and in the end there were just a few of us creeping around in dark caves and corridors trying to avoid these physical duplicates. The last bit we remember we were high up in some cliffs watching these people entering a dark building and then one of them looked up.

At a funeral yesterday and afterwards we all stood and looked at the wreathes laid out behind the crematorium. The wall behind had lots of commemorative plaques. The sun was behind the crematorium and the shimmering shadow cast by the hot plume from the column disappearing into nothing said more about death than any of them.

About bloody time

At last the world has struck back (a bit). EU forces have raided Somalia and destroyed several boats believed to be used by pirates. Hopefully, this will be just the start of some effective action by all the nations affected by these malignant people, not just Europe and the West but the Chinese, Indians, Arab states and others who have any significant international trade. Obviously, there have been concerns for those held hostage but restraint for that reason makes little sense if it results in even more hostages being taken.

It seems there were no casualties. Maybe, if the boats were unmanned , that is fair enough, we should not be deliberately engaging in indiscriminate attacks on villages in Somalia just for the sake of it. However, given the way that Europe has evolved an absurd respect for human rights regardless of how malignant the human may be and how detrimental he may be to others, one suspects that this is restraint bordering on idiocy. If observation told them where the pirate boats were, then they presumably also know the nearby places where the pirates live.

We shall see. Boats do not commit piracy, men do, and if the pirates can be pinpointed as being in a certain area then that area should be fair game. Successful defence can rarely be accomodated without loss of a few innocents and, in the end, given that we are both the products and the active components of the societies that raised us, what does innocent mean? In places like Somalia, sometimes it only means not yet old enough to be guilty.

 

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