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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

Eye of beholder

Why do perfectly reasonable looking young people do such hideous things to themselves? Almost every young bloke you meet now seems to have a horrible tattoo on his arm. Those little studs both sexes have in their eyebrows, cheeks, lips and side of the nostrils are even worse, they look like silver warts. Why don't they just wait until they get old? Then they will get lots of discoloured patches and lumps from mother nature and it won't cost a penny. That's an idea! If looking hideous is trendy among young people, why do us oldies worry about it? Rather we should regard all those signs of ageing as marvellous free decoration!

Mature adults

It is quite a comfort, when a missus goes, to have a son still living at home, even one as wierd as #1. Brought some conservatory furniture today, including a glass top table (no Una Stubbs jokes please) so naturally we used it for a wind-up yappy teeth race, the loser made the next cup of tea.

Wouldn't it be great if, instead of boring cars, we all went to work on huge wind-up yappy teeth? Of course they are hopeless at following any sensible path and tend to go randomly round in circles but that wouldn't matter if we were not so anal about qualifications. So what if a plumber ends up at the vets surgery, he should take it in his stride and get stuck in. Fixing a ballcock in a water tank, sticking your hand up a cow to deliver a calf in the breach position, much the same thing really, if you can do one you can surely do the other.

Twits

A couple of popes are to be made saints having, supposedly, performed the necessary couple of miracles each. We will leave it to the non-existent readers to check into the details of those in the unlikely event they are interested but these miracles are never proven facts. Firstly, there may be doubts about the diagnosis in the first place. You only have to read the news of the latest suings of the NHS to realise how common misdiagnosis is, even in first world countries. Secondly, it is sometimes possible to find cases of similar unlikely recoveries from the same condition when no divine intervention was ever requested.

Case studies aside, it is the rareness of these events that should make these people question them. How many religious people, when gravely ill, when in pain or facing death, pray to the lord or one of his earthly representatives? Without doubt, given human nature, a pretty significant proportion, if not most. How many are actually cured? Almost none unless miracles are grossly underreported. So what can do we conclude? The obvious one is that the frequency of these very unlikely recoveries is entirely in line with chance.

Another explanation, for those who insist on believing in irrational crap, is that the almighty is so bloody selective in whom he deems worthy of help that most people might as well give up religion. The chance that you are one of the tiny elite he cares about, who might be admitted to paradise, is pretty negligible. Get out and enjoy the one life that we know exists.

No matter how rational you think you are

Of no interest to those who are not fascinated by nature but we intended to make an observation a few months back and never got round to it, about the interaction of man and wildlife.

It concerned the silence in a place we had been running in and the lack of bird song which contrasted so sharply with the almost continual cacophony in our garden, the harsh rasp of Magpies, the repetitive woo-woohing of Doves and Pidgeons, the chatter of Sparrows, the evening chorus of Thrushes and Blackbirds, the tiny twitterings of Bluetits or the varied song of the male Robin whose volume belies his tiny form.

If the presence of man is quite so destructive of nature, we were going to ask, how come these birds seem much more common in areas close to us than those more remote? It was a valid point in general we think, there does seem more natural activity closer to home than in other areas and maybe the things we do, feeding birds, cultivating different plants that encourage insect variety, clearing land to provide varied habitats and nesting sites, digging our gardens to expose worms and other food, can actually be positive for many bird and mammal species. Not to mention laying lawns that that F* badger loves ripping up!

But we ran through that same place again today and it isn't typical of the country around here except in appearance. It is a large oval field of uncultivated, unkempt grass entirely surrounded by trees like many others in the area. The footpath runs through the middle. Nothing unusual about it all - except for the stillness and silence. In other similar fields you may see deer, rabbits, pheasants or birds flying overhead but not in this one. When we say there is no bird sound we mean NO bird sound, nothing at all. No other sound either, although it not far from a road you can hear no cars. Only after we had just left it and run onto the adjacent woods did we actually hear the roar of the approaching aircraft from the nearby airport. We did think of running back into the field to see if the sound disappeared but thought that was a bit too silly.

We will try it next time. This field is open, green and sunny. But definitely, very, very creepy.

What the hell are we doing to ourselves?

It is common in Britain for any mention of problems with migrants and minorities to be denounced as racism despite the facts that are available from government and other sources. Even if the realities are acknowledged they are largely blamed on racism and exclusion despite the facts, again from reputable sources, that show that migrants' success, beliefs and practices in the UK tend to mirror those in the countries of origin.

But there are some beliefs and practices that even the most idiotic liberals cannot blame on us, like honour killings, forced marriage, FGM, acid attacks on women, belief in witchcraft or beating of children to drive out evil spirits. Now there is another barbarism we appear to be importing from West Africa, breast ironing, in which young girls have their chests pounded with hot objects to delay development. Not surprisingly it is hugely painful and may cause permanent deformation.

There are unlikely to be any compensating factors for UK citizens due to the presence of these people. A 2007 report showed that 39% of Ghanaians and 29% of Nigerians in the UK live in social housing, compared to 17% of British born. We can find no figures for those from Cameroon, where this latest barbarism mainly comes from, but this report suggests their contribution is probably even lower because many are French speaking and have poor English.

Given the basic premise, which we would regard as self evident, that British citizens do not have a duty to provide for those of other nations, nor to solve all their problems, can anyone please explain just why it is that any reasonable person should NOT object to the importation of such backwardness into our once advancing nation when there are no plus sides for us whatever?

Topic: What are we doing to ourselves? Comment here. Comments so far: 0

A real opportunity to save money

Didn't see it, but the BBC's Panorama has raised questions about the guilt of Shrien Dewani, who is accused of arranging his wife's murder in South Africa. We at bloggoth have no idea if he is guilty or not but we are intrigued that high profile criminal cases are being so thoroughly investigated by the press/media. This must have reduced the cost of Dewani's defence as members of the jury who have seen or read about the program will already be at least partially convinced of his innocence, whatever the prosecution may say.

More press/media investigations into high profile cases would reduce the need for time spent by overpaid lawyers and judges, saving taxpayers' money and providing entertainment into the bargain. When celebrities are involved, and there's no shortage of such cases, why stop with investigative documentaries? What is the point of making a jury sit for days, sometimes weeks, in dingy courtrooms when we already have millions of willing jurors sitting there in front of their TV screens! Let's put entire trials on TV and let the public decide. We can imagine it now, the program could run on Saturday and Sunday evenings and be called Strictly Come Judging. Introduced by good old Bruce Forsyth of course. And Claudia Winkelman, we do like Claudia.

PS Innocent! Rolph would never do such a thing.

PPS Just as well the charges concern girls, otherwise that Two Little Boys song would really have counted against him.

When will some people wake up about the nature of Islam?

Another day, another indiscriminate massacre of innocent people by Islamists, with 59 killed in Kenya. Just 3 days ago they killed 87 people in Nigeria and only a few weeks back they slaughtered at least 44. In 4 years they have killed over 3000 people in Nigeria alone. Actually, make that two massacres today, 60 have also been killed in Pakistan. Violence against Christians and others is not exactly new there either. Parts of the Philippines are currently in turmoil due to violent Islamists who have been kidnapping and beheading people for over a decade.

In every part of the world where Islam has a significant presence, including Indonesia, Malaysia, The Phillipines, Egypt, Libya, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, Kenya, the Central African Republic and Tanzania, there is major violence against others. Yet some prefer to continue living in their dreamworld of ignorance, denying the realities or citing scripture to argue that these people who claim to act in the name of peaceful Islam are somehow not really Muslims. What the hell difference does it make what we call them when they all spring from the Muslim population? Who is responsible for the rising tide of Islamic violence against others in what were once fairly safe nations like Bangladesh or Indonesia, Chinese immigrants? Are the Jihadists in the West really coming from atheist backgrounds? How many times have we read of extremists who were once moderate, Westernised young men? What made them change, studying the bible? These arguments are as idiotic as quoting the Gospel to prove the Spanish inquisition had nothing to do with Christianity.

Extreme Islam, false Islam, pseudo Islam, whatever you want to call it, has only the one source, Islam in general. The more Muslims you take in, the more extremists and terrorists you will get. We need to focus on extremism in particular without further marginalising law-abiding Muslim citizens of the UK to avoid making the problem worse but it makes no sense whatever to encourage the growth of Islam with any further immigration from Muslim countries. Immigration from them, except with the highest level of checks, needs to stop now.

PS "British" Jihadists are training in conflicts abroad. The Kenya terrorists are thought to have come from all around the world including the UK.

Three years ago the then head of MI5, Sir Jonathan Evans, warned that Muslim extremists from the UK were increasingly switching from Pakistan to Somalia to receive training in militant camps. “It is only a matter of time before we see terrorism on our streets inspired by those who are today fighting alongside al-Shabaab,” predicted Sir Jonathan.

At the time, about a 100 UK passport-holders were estimated to be in Somalia. That number is believed to have grown threefold, along with others from Europe and America seeking to join the jihad. The upward trend has continued despite the recent rush to Syria.

Maybe, if any "Briton" goes to a nation like Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan etc. without proven peaceful reason, we should not let them back in. It is time the safety of the real British, of whatever origin, came first.

Socialist Idiots

Two recent comments from senior Labour Party figures illustrate the destructive thinking of socialism. Rachel Reeves said a Labour government would only raise taxes for the "privileged few" on £150,000 or more a year. Ed Moribund has pledged to end the coalition's welfare cuts for those in social housing who have unecessarily large properties.

Privileged means confined to an exclusive or chosen group. While wealth can buy privilege, simply earning a good salary is not in itself privilege and the term is more accurately applied to those who live in overlarge homes at the expense of ordinary taxpayers who could never afford such space themselves. Yes, of course it must be stressful for somebody to have to move out of their home, but equally it is stressful for working people to struggle to pay the rent on what they are paid after the taxman has taken all his cuts *, for business people to have to cope with ever more onerous taxes and red tape.

Changes in welfare policy will often cause problems and stress but, in the long term, we cannot keep spending money on what is unecessary. While some compassion is desirable in enforcing the policy on occasions, it is insane in general to keep destroying the incentive of working people and the efficiency of productive businesses to provide unecessary benefits for those who already get more than they contribute.

Topic: Socialist Idiots Comment here. Comments so far: 0

* Yes, we mean cuts, plural. The tax and NI the ordinary man sees in his pay slip are the tips of the iceburg. Corporation tax, employer's NI and the huge costs of complying with all the government red tape and form filling have already vanished from what his employer might have been otherwise have been able to pay him. When he spends he is not just paying VAT but all those same costs for the suppliers that might otherwise have allowed for a cheaper product.

No updates from the Good Lord? How come?

What are the most annoying things in life? That's a hard question to answer when you are a ranty old git because absolutely everything, from the global operations of our political leaders to the gardening activities of close neighbours is annoying! One common minor annoyance is software updates, you cannot turn on your PC without yet another update, especially from Adobe. How many years have they been doing Adobe Reader? You would think they would have got what is basically a single format document reader about right by now, so it didn't need updating every F* week!

Mind you, software like Adobe's is definitely another argument against the existence of a caring god. If companies created by mere mortals can remotely improve their creations, how come the almighty never thought of it or couldn't manage it? Why do we grow progressively older and frailer? How is it that, if we recover from illness and injury, it is often only due to the efforts of other men? Why can't he send us a regular health update? You may say that this is like expecting software updates to modernise your PC hardware. Maybe, but then the non-existent bastard is supposed to be omnipotent, so it isn't expecting too much for him to do a bit more than Adobe can manage. At least he could do a few memory upgrades, stop us being forgetful, prevent dementia. If that isn't the biological equivalent of a program update, what is?

What would you do?

This is getting a bit awkward. What do you do when a lady regularly calls round in an extremely plastered state, saying her husband doesn't f*/love her anymore and getting very clutchy? Answers on a postcard SVP.

PS: she is quite ancient. If she was a bit younger we would not even ask. Or if her husband was not an ex marine!

XOG

Our cheap little driving safety recorder/dashcam is still working well. Well done Chinks, it hasn't blown up yet, we are impressed! Ready to come to my aid if some bastard runs into me. Oi! Who said you could use my name?

King Cull

People are often complete hypocrites, being in favour of this and that except when it affects them. Even we at bloggoth come close at times. We are totally against culling badgers but we would damn well give them, the stripey little bastard that is destroying my lawn anyway, a darn good shouting at. A darn good beeping at anyway. Stuck two of those movement detector alarms out there.

If they wake up MR PIKEY SCUM, that will only be fair as we have to stick a big piece of cardboard over the window if we use the spare room, due to his security light going on and off all night; it must be triggered by moths. It has to annoy other people as well, it lights up the whole road. ANNOYING NEIGHBOURS? Don't get me started, too late! Bloody motor powered tools! Nice weekend for a sit outside and the so and so two doors up starts mowing the lawn or the so and so two doors down gets out his bloody strimmer. Look you idiot, why not just pull the F* weeds out? Not only is it better exercise but it stays weed-free for longer. And bloody noisy kids! The road is full of hordes of identical little blond girls riding up and down on bikes and shrieking and screaming their heads off. They can't really be human surely?

Wait a minute. Are these evil little bastards creeping in at night and digging up my lawn? Is Mr Badger innocent? Probably. Animals (except cats) can do no wrong in my view. I'm sorry I doubted you little badger.

PS MR PS is very quiet and gloomy up at the club these days. I hear he he has severe pain in his teeth. What a shame! All together now, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Reality is not racism

Following suggestions that G K Chesterton should be made a saint (as if it matters) some have complained about his "racist views" because he said that Jews cannot be loyal to a country because their higher loyalty was to fellow Jews.

As with any comment about any group there were those, perhaps a majority, it did not apply to but then who seriously believes he meant ALL Jews? Talk to anyone in their 80s or 90s, pleasant, good natured people like my father in law and there is still anti-semitism and their complaint is exactly what Chesterton said. It is hard to see why anyone has a problem with Jews these days but we tend to forget that Judaism has moderated considerably since Chesterton's time and that Jews have now integrated well. It was not always so.

The problem with the modern tendency to dismiss any criticism of any group as racism is that it often ignores realities, not just about specific groups and the nature of the countries or creeds which have shaped their views and practices, but even about human nature itself. All groups, including the white British, have a higher loyalty to others of their kind, whether by ethnicity, religion or however else defined, than to those outside. When religious belief encourages a contempt for others, as Islam too often does and as Judaism once did, or when low achievement feeds resentment, as with too many black youths, the gulf is only widened.

This separation has consequences for us all but it is those within groups who remain outside society that are the most affected and the culture of silence is a major reason why crimes within major ethnic groups, such as gangland killings, gang rape, FMG, forced marriage or child abuse are more likely to remain unsolved or never reported at all. Pretending that any mention of the problems within minorities is unjustified white racism and encouraging separation will not lead to any solutions. Maybe liberals should consider the minority victims of their idiotic multicultural society sometimes, or don't black and Asian victims matter in the pursuit of their ideals?

Links on the consequences of multiculturalism:

AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF CRIMINOLOGY: It is now common knowledge that a large majority of offences that occur in a community remains unsolved and nothing is known about the perpetrators.
LONDON24 on a club shooting: Police have not been able to solve the crime due to the ‘culture of silence’ surrounding London gangs
The Guardian on forced marriage: Nobody knows what the true figure is because so many young victims are terrified of coming forward. But it is definitely much, much higher than what is reported.
The BBC on FMG: The victims "are hidden behind a wall of silence", said Lisa Harker of NSPCC.
The Guardian on gang rape: Women and girls who are raped in this context rarely seek help and support, or have their victimisation recognised by professionals. The fear of retribution, and the wider context of neighbourhood violence within which such sexual assaults take place, should not be underestimated.
The NSPCC on child sex abuse: In those communities where sexual abuse remains a taboo subject, there is more likely to be a fear of reprisals from a relatively strong community network that may condemn rather than help the victim: anecdotal evidence from the NSPCC’s Services to minority ethnic children and families support the view that South Asian, African, Caribbean and Chinese communities all share a common fear of ‘everyone finding out’.
The Telegraph on honour attacks: But campaigners warn that recorded cases may be just the “tip of the iceberg” with thousands of incidents going unreported each year because of fear of reprisal, family pressure or inconsistent police recording.
The Muslim Womens' Network: This report is a welcome path-breaking work focusing on the experiences of Asian and Muslim abused children. There has been a deafening silence concerning this group in the existing body of work on sexual abuse of children. In all communities victims of such violence find it difficult to report sexual abuse and seek support. Among Asians and Muslims this is exacerbated by a culture of honour and shame that is so powerful as to mask the reality of lived experiences.
The Telegraph on a Birmingham terror plot: It emerged that some people in Birmingham knew Naseer had sent four other men to Pakistan for training but did not alert the police. They also warned parents would not raise concerns because many were in denial that their children could be caught up in serious terror planning.

People are wierd

Not seen any for years, but what a strange thing those "glory holes" were. Some may say that gays/fags (please choose whichever) are pretty strange anyway but who on earth would spend hours in the cubicle of a public convenience laboriously digging a hole in the wall with a penknife? Straight blokes would ensure that any such holes in dilapidated public bogs were suitably filled with bog paper and it would be noticed if anyone pushed it out, so they might just as well just use some more direct approach anyway. And were they just for viewing or for poking through? Must be some distinct height problems in latter case, did Ronnie Corbett types bring step ladders?

Hmmm. Mens' and womens' convenience are generally adjacent and are mirror images of each other, so the cubicles may often only be separated by a solid wall. Must remember to take a hammer and chisel next time.

Green - not

Why do people spout idealistic principles but dont' follow them? A woman on Rip Off Britain moved into a new, supposedly low energy flat, powered by renewable energy and said how pleased she was as she really believed in protecting the planet etc. When the heating didn't work well, she had to have an electric blanket on all night because it was so cold.

WTF? xoggoth Towers is never heated at night because, being in a village with no gas, it has noisy oil fired heating. In winter we just use thicker duvets. Try it, you silly woman!

PS: Incidentally, oil-fired hot air heating is the most economical and fastest responding heating you can get. As usual this year, we topped up with 500l of oil, cost £370, which will easily get us through the winter. Why these hot air systems are so difficult to get now we have no idea.

Survival of the fattest

Darwin's theory of natural selection was not the first theory of evolution. According to Lamarck, animals acquired characteristics by striving for them. Each generation then inherited the results of its parents' efforts and added its own. For example, Giraffes' necks got longer because they kept stretching to reach more leaves, its longer necked offspring did the same and so on, giving us the modern animal.

Lamark's theory is easily discredited by facts but that's boring! Theories should not be accepted based on their credibility but on their entertainment value. It would be much more fun if Lamarkian evolution was correct and every generation inherited and built on the characteristics of their parents, especially if the changes could be speeded up a bit. For example, fat slobs would have fat slobby babies who would then add their own fat slobbiness and in a few generations they would produce enormous great limbless balloon-like blobs. Athletes, on the other hand, would produce superheros after a few generations. Olympic high jumpers would have grand children who really could leap tall buildings in a single bound.

You might say that high jumper humanity would be far better suited to survival than fat slobby humanity, how would the latter feed themselves unless they adapted to rolling around in dung heaps and absorbing it through the skin or something? Don't be silly! Survival of the fittest is a Darwin idea and he has been discredited here on bloggoth. Far too boring.

Ashes to ashes

Rationally, it shouldn't matter what you do with someone's ashes, you could just bung them in the dustbin, but even we at bloggoth can't manage to be quite that rational. Many just let them be scattered at the crematorium and have a memorial in the gardens there but, despite all the nice landscaping and the care, it's still an impersonal place, miles away on the edge of a rather crappy town and next to a noisy road near an industrial estate. We wanted somewhere more rural and closer to home but can't find anything at all, the historic local churches ran out of room for plaques about 50 years ago and the National Trust doesn't have memorials in their parks anymore, so missus xoggoth has come back home. We have a nice little patch near the woods at the back that will make a great little memorial garden.

There are some interesting use of ashes, they get made into jewellary, pots and so on. We plan to make detailed arrangements for our own demise so the sons don't have all this hastle. Wonder if ashes can be used to make tiles in a ladies' public convenience? We would enjoy that.

It's about effort

An unusually short (and unranty!) item on Mr Sheep's blog re Diana Nyad, a 64 year old who has almost completed a 112 mile swim, reminds me of something I had meant to mention for a while, the astonishing way that some people, despite age or infirmity, put so much effort into life.

An old lady down the road is nearly 90 but still goes yachting at a local club. She uses a stick and is rather bent over but she strides up our steep hill at a rate that puts many younger people here to shame, although she told me recently that she has considerable discomfort in her hip. She also said that, purely because of her age, she is very unlikely to be offered another hip operation. I have worked with great fat wobbling bastards in their 30s who can't even walk across the office to the vending machine at the rate she goes uphill but doubtless operations would not be refused them.

There is no such thing as just money, everything we spend has to come from somewhere else, so maybe there is no point in expensive operations on people who are unlikely to survive much longer. However, should age be the sole criteria? Or should we take account of the effort that people put into caring for themselves, keeping fit and avoiding being a burden on others?

Topic: It's about effort Comment here. Comments so far: 0

The five pillars of REAL wisdom

Needed a vodka and a bit of company after playing the last Youtube thing. Sniff. Darn it! The club was closed, forgot it's 4pm on a Sunday, so it's just you and me, Mr P. (And Little Pip, Mr P has a little friend to keep him company)

That's an advantage of religion, religious people have all the main objectives, times and places - Sunday Mass, Eid, Diwali, annual confession, pilgrimages to Mecca etc - set out for them. Us rational sorts who think, based on the drivelling illogic of them, that the established religions are mostly utter bollux, don't have these comforting rituals and maybe we are losing out. Comforting rituals can actually be a positive side of religion. Memorising the Qu'ran, mumbling "Ite Missa est" while choking on incense, wearing silly turbans and toy swords, being respectful to cows etc are all harmless in themselves and, if it makes people feel good, why not?

That's what we atheists/agnostics need, pointless rituals! In future the Five Pillars of xoggoth wisdom will be:

Shouting "what a bunch of crap!" on awakening every morning and uttering at least 400 obscenities a day for no particular reason.
Getting drunk at the village club beginning at 2.30 every Sunday. (And Friday and Saturday at 8pm too, but those are not areligious obligations)
Being tossed off at a local whorehouse each Thursday. Any lady is permitted as long as she conforms with the non-sacred obligation of xoggothism, she must be cheap. Appearance is not important.
Spending a minimum of 10 minutes each day sorting old bits and pieces in the non-sacred xoggoth shed. For example, old rubber rings that might come in useful for sealing something must be separated from straight bits of metal that might be some day be useful for fixing something to some other thing.
Sniffing the bottoms of neighbours' dogs at regular intervals. Contrary to the uninformed opinions of critics of xoggothism, this is not perversion but an affirmation of the xoggoth belief that man has no special place in the universe and that the practices of all animals are as valid as our own.

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose

Saw some bit of dull celebrity news about Debbie McGee that reminded me of this old one. The song and the themes, hippy dressing, singin' the blues, hitchhiking with girlfriends, sex with someone else, feeling good. Takes us back to when life had a point. Sniff.

PS: "give all my tomorrows for a single yesterday". Damn it. Where's the vodka?

Bastard Blair is not the issue

Lots of stuff in the news, like this article, about Iraq and the false allegations of WMD having destroyed British belief in interventions. Is the invented basis for the invasion of Iraq really the main issue? I think the British public have more sense than that and, in all the interviews on TV I saw, that was not mentioned even once. That lying bastard Blair (who should be shot) may have diminished confidence in the honesty of government but that is not what mainly concerns people.

What is much more relevant to most is that the invasion of Iraq, justified or not, was an expensive failure. Even more important still, since it is possible to see some hope for Iraq, was the invasion of Afghanistan, where the chances of any real improvement in return for all the umpteen billions spent and lives lost are about zero. We helped get rid of Gaddafi in Libya but so far there has been no spring for those who wanted democracy and secular government. Factional conflicts continue and Christian and Jewish minorities are now far less safe than they were. Egypt is a factor too because events there have shown how small the chances of real progress remain in the Arab world even when the dictators are ousted.

Anyone who has given it real thought will see this idea of a limited strike to deter future use of chemical weapons for the naive, simplistic crap that it is. Even assuming they could do it without killing more innocent civilians (if you bomb a store of chemical weapons what happens to the gas?) or aiding the Islamist rebels is Assad really just going to ignore it or will there be a response? One scenario will be an attack on Israel. This could ignite a wider conflict that will kill a darn site more than 300 to 400 people. * What about our relations with Russia? Do we really need to jeopardise so much for a conflict that is none of our concern? Especially when it is pointless. After all these threats will Assad (assuming he authorised them in the first place) really use these weapons again anyway? He is no fool and would know that a second mass gassing could well change attitudes as that would allow the Camorons and Obummers to claim they were right.

The British public might be more convinced by the need for foreign interventions if they had any belief that they might actually achieve something other than cost for themselves and prolonged misery for those they tried to help.

* Or 1429, 300000, 35 million, 6 billion or whatever the latest figure is today.

Multiculturalism is fantastic - let's extend it further

We at bloggoth have had a rethink and are now totally convinced of the value of multiculturalism. British society deserves great credit for maintaining its class divisions for centuries but it was getting rather boring and predictable. How refreshing to import lots of exciting new divisions!

Now we can have great new arguments, like whether we should have a secular democracy or Shariah, whether violent ethnic gangs are due to cultural failures or white racism, whether women should make their own decisions. All the stale old arguments about government foreign policy, immigration etc have been given a new impetus by the vested interests of migrants, and the fact that the ethnic British have somewhat lost control of their own future due to voting non citizens and minority-dominated marginals just makes everything so much more exciting! And what fun some of these cultures have brought to our staid society! Things like FMG, honour killings, forced marriage. We even have belief in witches and possession by evil spirits again, should have never gone away in my opinion. Most importantly, we now have far more groups of people, not just the rich elite and the working classes, who despise, blame and avoid each other; with a bit of luck we can bring back the glorious days of Britain's tribal past, before that boring bastard Athelstan went and unified us all.

Since multiculuralism is such a marvellous idea, isn't it time we applied the same principles to other things like team sports? Requiring all participants to conform to the same rules is very dull. In football, for example, players should be allowed to throw the ball or hit it with a bat or racket if they want to. Cage fighters and boxers in the teams should be allowed to attack other players without getting red cards and why shouldn't a centre forward ride a horse? Let us enrich sport with the same fantastic variety of attitudes and practices that has so enriched our society as a whole.

Well done Ed

The idiotic idea that we should intervene in Syria is not dead but it's nice to see that Labour have killed off the even more idotic idea that we should intervene even before the UN inspectors have concluded, assuming they do, that Assad is responsible.

Not surprisingly, it took about 5 secs of googling to find comments accusing Milliband of weekness, being unable to make tough decisions. Tough? We need political leaders whose decisions are a) Rational and based on proper facts and/or realistic assessment and b) Broadly in line with the wishes of the contributing citizens of our so-called democracy. Only then should we give a shit about whether they are tough enough to push those decisions through.

Update: When interviewed, Milliband seemed surprisingly statesman like and sensible. Please don't overdo it Ed, we don't want your lot in power, even Camoron is preferable.

Trapped

Never get into a lift without your mobile phone says the Daily Express.

Sound advice I should have applied to my garage the other week. Had just woken up and heard an almighty bang from the garage beneath the bedroom, went down to check and found it very hard to open. It is one of those sectional doors you lift up and the spring on one side had decided to break, smashing one of the storage boxes.

Foolishly, I decided the problem was the unbalanced load and that it would be easier to lift if I also removed the spring the other side. Opened the door fully, got up on a ladder and pulled it off, the door went down with a bang and then I found I couldn't lift it. I had totally underestimated the weight of it. 6.30 in the morning, trapped in a dark garage with a double metal panelled door and, worst of all, I was dying for a crap. Fortunately, I had a torch and tools so it only took me 3/4 hour to remove the top panel and clamber out. Not fun.

We have a new electrically operated garage door now and it is supposed to have a manual emergency lock but, if I am in there with the door closed, I might keep an old mobile phone in there just in case.

Religion fails again

Just a little while back (not for the first time - yawn) we said how those denied normal sexual outlets in strictly religious countries will look for abnormal ones and there is plenty of evidence for this, we have posted reputable links before about the high levels of child abuse in nations like Afghanistan or Uganda. Homosexuality is also more common in places where it is supposed to be a sin. If frustrated young men are denied the proper holes they are going to look for other ones. As the old rugby song goes "There's a shortage of good whores but there's keyholes in the doors and there's knotholes in the floors in Mobile".

According to The BBC Karachi is a gay man's paradise:

Families go to the Abdullah Shah-Ghazi shrine to honour the holy man buried there and to ask for God's blessings, but it is also Karachi's biggest cruising ground. Every Thursday evening, as the sun sets, men from across the city gather there. A tightly packed circle is formed and those in the centre of the circle are groped by those on the periphery.

The shrine is far from the only place in Karachi where gay sex is freely available. It is, for example, easy to buy from a malchi walah - a masseur who offers massage and "extras" for the equivalent of £5, or $7.80. "We get important people - police, army officers and ministers too," says one masseur, Ahmed. He claims to have slept with more than 3,000 men during his working life - despite having two wives and eight children.

In all the months I spent hanging around the UK gay capital of Brighton during the missus's treatments I can't say I ever saw anything remotely like that, actually I never saw any openly gay behaviour at all. Homosexuality is common in Bangladesh too:

The report also found a large number of young male workers – migrants from the country’s villages – in homosexual relationships, a taboo among orthodox Muslims.

Not bothered what homosexuals get up to in private but the point is that these men in Pakistan and Bangladesh are mostly not homosexual, they are heterosexual men denied normal sex with girlfriends because of their nations' absurd religious taboos. Wonder how many Catholic priests would have preferred sex with mature women instead of little boys if it had been permitted?

Religion is an absurdity. Not only does it not improve human behaviour one iota but but forcing people to deny their natural needs to avoid "sin" often pushes them into even greater ones.

Total idiots

This is another of those stupid news stories of the sort you get over and over. The family of a brain injury victim are "disgusted" because the Social Security Agency sent him a form to fill in to assess if he was unfit to work. Why? Do they seriously expect the SCA to spend umpteen billions of taxpayers' money by having somebody run a detailed check on every single recipient of every single bit of correspondence to see if it is relevant and appropriate before they send it? Idiots.

Maybe we at bloggoth should get onto the papers because Vision Express sent Missus bloggoth a letter saying her eye test is overdue, the insensitive bastards!

Sensible people across the political spectrum

Just for a bit of balance, here are articles about the threat that the UK may get involved in the Syrian war from both the left and right wing press:

We have no particular comment on the articles, TBH we could not be arsed to read them in full, what is more interesting is the comments by the papers' readers and the ratings they attract. Left and right wing press, the readers are overwhelmingly against yet another stupid intervention which will cost us more money, kill yet more innocent people, do nothing for the people of Syria who really do want more freedom, produce a totally negative outcome for its beleaguered Christian and Jewish minorities and hand yet more propoganda to the Islamic extremists.

Why will utter F* bastards like Camoron never pay attention to the wishes of the people in our so-called democracies?

PS: The leftist Daily Mirror also has a poll on whether its readers back military action against Syria. When I clicked it 84% were voting no.

Interesting technology

3D printing allows manufacture of objects by building them up in layers using any suitable material, such as plastic or metal. There has been much recent interest in the 3D gun. A totally different area of technology, still in its infancy, is stem cell therapy. Undifferentiated stem cells, which can be extracted from urine, have the ability to transform as necessary into other cells and repair different parts of the body.

Presumably there are chemical factors that tell these stem cells what sort of cell they should become. If they could isolate those and find ways to speed the transformation up you could use 3D printing technology to build up body parts with stem cells. Expensive transplants and cosmetic surgery would be things of the past.

Missing the main point

Is it really necessary to have a single oath to join the girl guides? I had to swear a probate form the other day and the solicitor asked if I wanted to swear on the bible. I said it didn't mean a thing to me, so I swore a secular version. The guides oath isn't even that important as it has no legal status, so why can't there also be different scout/guide oaths to suit different people?

Whatever the "higher power" one likes to invoke, whether commitment to UK law or to god, it is what one swears to uphold that matters. The bigger problem with the new version is not that it is framed by secularists but by liberal lefties. They are dropping allegiance to my country in favour of my community. The problem with "community" is that it can be interpreted in different ways, is it the wider community or the narrow community of some particular creed or group?

We need to encourage committment to a unified nation by those of all ethnic bacgrounds, of any faith or none. Anything else is just taking us back to tribalism.

Strange things update

Update 26/8/2012 approx 12.45: Going to town and there's that old chap again. It isn't just because he "lives there", this is a 3/4+ mile stretch of rural road and he can be at any part of it, purposefully walking. If one drove through any similar stretch at various times of various days one might keep seeing the same person near their house/work etc but not going shopping in completely different places every time.

There is only one explanation. This "old chap" is not a real person at all but is actually a disguised mobile speed camera set up to catch speeding motorists as they enter the town. F* government never stops spying on us!

Fuckwit Hague Again

FH and other Western leaders live in a Hollywood B Movie world; because dictators like Gaddafi and Assad are villains, anyone who opposes them must be heroes. They do not seem to notice that the action of Islamists around the world make both men look almost decent by contrast. Now they seem to be dismissing any chance of the chemical attacks in Syria as not being by Assad before the UN inspectors have even got there and already preparing for air strikes. Assad may be the most likely culprit but should other possibilities be dismissed so quickly?

Let's look at some facts from reputable sources. United nations experts have warned that unsecured arms from Libya are leaving the country at an alarming rate, falling into the hands of terrorist groups and fuelling the conflicts in Syria, Mali and elsewhere. The OPCW reported that Gaddafi had chemical weapons. This was mustard gas, not the nerve agents used in Syria but, given that even this was only belatedly revealed by the new government, how can we be so sure those did not exist in Libya too and are now being supplied by extremist Islamic factions to other countries? How can we be sure that terrorists cannot get such nerve agents, especially the smallish quantities used in these attacks, from elsewhere? One thing we do know for sure, those of us not determined to inhabit a dream world of ignorance anyway, is that some Islamist groups, as in Mali, would have no compunction about gassing innocent people if it helped their cause and duped stupid Westerners into supplying them with weapons.

Regardless of who did it, why the hell should the West be involved in Syria, especially when, as in Egypt and Libya, the probably outcome will be a deterioration in the lives of most of its citizens? When the Jewish and Christian populations will be largely eradicated without the protection of those nasty dictators?

PS

And WTF are we doing given sanctuary to Muslim Brotherhood crap like this? Moderate Islamists? Compared to some groups maybe but, when Islam is concerned, it is rarely too hard to find a worse group than the one you are looking at. Rule by the Muslim Brotherhood will only mean removal of any real rights from non Muslims. Unless a chance to avoid trouble by keeping very quiet, not challenging Islamic law and not expecting any real role in society is a right, obviously.

Time we stopped with these double standards, placing such emphasis on human rights in our own country that we hand residence to dangerous foreign criminals and yet ignoring the appalling human right records in foreign countries we support and give foreign aid to

Apey Logies

To the 2 real commenters among the non-existent readers of bloggoth. (And bollux to all you f* comment spammers!) Due to yet another bloggoth malfunction I hadn't realised I had any comments recently so Apey Logies for lack of any replies.

Update: My f* email forwarding settings were changed, who did that? - must be Al Qaeda or the conspiring British/US governments again!

Fuckwit Hague

We had done a longish, typically boring, xoggoth rant with lots of dull links from the BBC, Guardian etc, so any idiotic liberal lefties among the non-existent readership could not just dismiss it out of hand, against the stupidity of William Hague, a politician we once had high regard for. His continual idiotic belief in this "Arab spring" and his hints that once again, despite all the evidence that it is really an Arab winter, especially for Christians and other minorities, that yet more British taxpayers' money will be wasted on interventions that will only serve the Islamists shows how wrong we were, this chap's logic is even more deficient than his hair.

For some reason this rant kept entirely freezing bloggoth (Al Quiada has hacked us!) and we could not (be arsed to) figure out why so we will just skip to this week's article that we would have written if we could have been arsed. The author puts it very well indeed.

From the start of the uprisings the narrative has been that the Arab world is moving towards democracy and freedom. Even the name, reminiscent of the Prague Spring of 1968, suggested things would get better; more likely precedents would be 1789, 1917 or the 1979 Iranian revolution, all of which led to far worse horrors. And yet Barack Obama, David Cameron and much of the media greeted events with almost child-like innocence. Back in February 2011 David Cameron told the Kuwaiti parliament it was "prejudice" to say that democracy would not work in the Arab world. His statement was an example of the enfeebled western mindset, where even considering a possible thesis that could smack of "prejudice" must be discounted before the evidence is assessed, so that we approach a problem blinkered from any unpleasant reality.

Topic: Fuckwit Hague Comment here. Comments so far: 0

More rights bollux

As an engineer who believes we should be guided by practicality and the overall results it always amazes me that people will start banging on about the human rights of some individual without thinking about the consequences of their demanded changes on others.

The latest bit of human rights nonsense concerns a woman kept in isolation for five years. Naturally, the Independent and other left of centre papers are telling us it is symptomatic of the way we treat women in jail and talking about national failures. There are no practical suggestions for dealing with such women. There is a national strategy for men but not for women, which seems a fair complaint on the surface but, given that they are much more likely to be violent, a "national strategy" for men is more necessary. There are still detailed guidelines and rules for dealing with women prisoners. What does this national strategy acheive anyway? Can't find any total figures for UK but in the US 10-20% of male prisoners are assaulted every month! Male prisons in the UK are very violent too for young offenders.

If somebody exhibits unpredictable and violent behaviour, as the woman in that Independent article is stated to, then what is the consequence of allowing her to mix with others except possible injury and trauma for them? It seems highly unlikely her behaviour can be fixed with a bit of counselling, so what other solutions are there? If she was kept on tranquilisers permanently that would have adverse health consequences and be an attack on her human rights too.

Yet again there is this emphasis on the rights of an individual and a total failure to consider that others have rights as well.

Too many legal scams

I am rather dubious of the idea that the CPP card protection scheme was as valueless as some seem are saying. It may be quite true that consumers are entitled to be repaid any money fraudulently taken a from credit card anyway but negotiating with the banks to to get that money back could involve a lot of hastle and, if more than one card was stolen and used, they would need to do the same thing for each one. CPP allowed addition of multiple cards and made it a one phone call thing to cancel them and they would deal with all the banks involved on your behalf. Using professionals also reduces the chance that banks will try and avoid paying by falsely claiming you were negligent. Still, if I get back a few hundred the missus paid them, I ain't complaining.

Been sorting out the missus's estate and thought I had closed down one of her credit gards only for them to write that a recurring payment had gone out, one of those damn extended warranty things she must have had on the last PC or printer. These things are a complete waste of money; If it's going to go wrong, electronic equipment is either going to be faulty out of the box or fail within the first few weeks of use due to a defective part and will be covered by the normal warranty. If it gets beyond that it should be ok for a few years until the capacitors start to age. She knew that and never willingly signed up for these things to my knowledge but a Google of "Product Support AG" finds various people sold them in Curry's or PC World without being aware of it.

There are lots of other legal scams too, as here. People using credit or debit cards for what are billed as special offers or signing up to discount clubs while making a purchase have found a recurring payment coming off their card and, until just a few weeks ago, banks would not cancel such payments. If the companies concerned would not do so there was no solution except to close the bank account. These were not all dubious little companies either but included some fairly well known names.

PS Another warning to non existent readers. Think your Nectar card is not important? That the worst anyone could do would be to steal your points? Beware! Because a transaction is not immediately recorded they can steal the same points more than once and leave you with a negative balance to pay off.

Strange things

Can't say I've seen any alien spaceships, Loch Ness monsters or ghosts recently but sometimes somewhat puzzling little things do happen.

This morning I made a coffee using what should have been a clean mug from the dishwasher, got near the bottom and felt an object in my mouth. Looked in the mug and it had loads of green peas in it. Just a problem due to #1 son's sloppy packing, not scraping things properly and putting mugs in the wrong way up I thought. The wierd bit was, I chucked the contents in the sink, with the plug in, and there was nothing there!

Another strange thing is, over and over again, when I drive to or from the local town, I keep seeing this same old chap walking along the road. It is all sorts of different places on route so he isn't just hanging around his house and it isn't that our routines coincide, my trips to town, about twice a week, are on various days and at any time of the day. It is definitely him as he is very distinctive, has a stick and, whatever the weather, always wears a flat woolly Compo-style cap and a big woolly jacket that gives his body a roundness not matched by his face. I am not imagining him as I have images on my car safety camera. Surely he can't spend his whole day walking to and from the supermarket but I can't see what else explains it.

Ask fm

Lots of stuff in the news about abuse and London gangs (ahem) taunting each other on ask.fm. Online bullying leading to suicide is puzzling to most adults, if you don't like what is said why not stop visiting the site? Such regular news item are only 2nd in incomprehensibility to those about immensely fat people being removed from their beds; who the f* has kept on feeding them so much once they could no longer work or care for themselves?

What exactly is ask.fm? Signed up under the usual false name we reserve for bollux/dodgy things (not that sort of dodgy things!) just to find out. There is a list of questions and you can type the answer or upload a video recording of your answer. The questions include fascinating stuff like "Do you prefer tea or coffee?" Do they think I am going to truthfully answer that personal question and get lots of abuse from people who like tea, leading to my eventual suicide? No thanks.

What a load of old balls some of these things are! We can understand the value of some online forums because you can get all sorts of useful help on things, technical, legal etc that you can't get for free elsewhere or have some interesting discussions on whatever interests you, like hobbies or politics. But what is the point of all the trivia that you can find on Twitter or ask.fm? If I want chat like that I can always wander up to the village club where it comes with some real human company (and vodka).

PS: Clicked Home and there's a set of photos under "See who's here" and they mostly appear to be young teenage girls with a scattering of small boys. Hmmm. Maybe there is a reason some like to visit it. Not me officer, I was just curious, erm, about what beverages people like to drink I mean.

What a load of crap xoggoth! Why don't you go and kill yourself?

The way back

After a major loss, how do you get a life back?

On the positive side, some would say, without the relaxed company we most enjoyed, we are doing more of the things that other people call normal, getting out more and socialising, going to the club, running with a local group of tasty young ladies, drinking with neighbours and seeing old friends. We do some volunteer things (come to think of it, there was a rather nice widow at the last footpath repair thing we went to) and have various other expansions of our social life planned, like joining the local wildlife society or local history society where we already know a few people.

Unfortunately, those are not the things we value the most. We want our imagination back, we want to write more wierd stories and boost our Kindle income from $3 per annum to $5 per annum, to post bollux or stupid cartoons here that nobody reads instead of dull Daily Mail type rants that nobody reads, to get into some real painting again before all our expensive acrylics go hard, to have our 35th unsuccessful attempt at mastering the guitar, to sketch and photograph bugs.

Instead, most days, we just have a J Arthur, get up, flip through the news on TV, flip through the news on the PC, spend hours doing paperwork (illness and death are bureaucratic nightmares) or pointless decorating jobs round the house and go for a jog before heading up to the village club or just staying at home and watching the Simpsons or messing about on the PC.

Where do things like imagination and interest in life go? Are they hidden somewhere waiting for a magic trigger to release them again? If I shot Ed Balls would that work? Worth a try.

Parrot

Is the solution counselling or therapy? It looks like bollux to us. We don't need some sympathetic stranger guiding us to "ways forward". We at bloggoth are a genius and we know the ways forward, the problem is feeling f* interested in life enough to actually pursue them. Another family member, for different reasons, is having some counselling, so we may see what he (another bright chap naturally) thinks.

Or are there simpler methods that don't involve annoying people? A film we keep meaning to watch is The Beaver. Mel Gibson plays a depressed character who communicates through a puppet and we can relate to that. The regular non-existent readers of bloggoth will already be familiar with Mr P, our puppet parrot, who is our best friend and a major contributor to this blog. We don't know why, but Mr P knows everything and is very, very wise despite his huge vodka consumption. Who is better placed to help we at bloggoth out of our mental rut than Mr P?

Yeh! And I only charge £200 per hour!

Democracy is about much more than getting the most votes in an election

Whether shooting lots of Muslim Brotherhood supporters is helping the situation in Egypt (given that they can't shoot them all) I am not so sure, but removing Morsi was the only solution to protect democracy. The MB, and some of the deluded here, are screaming that removing him from leadership was undemocratic, since he was elected by the people.

This is pure nonsense, there is much more to democracy than having elections every few years. They have elections in Iran, Pakistan and the Maldives too but how are those democracies when any who are not the right brand of Muslim are excluded from any say or influence in the way society works? When there is no freedom, by the press nor of non-Muslim citizens, to express alternative views? If others are excluded from all but the lowest ranks of government and are not free to persuade public opinion then how can any election be true and fair? When Islamism takes over, real freedom and democracy die as they are doing in Turkey.

Democracy does not end when the polls close either. While they are expected to pursue the general political direction and the policies on which they are elected, no democratic government can completely ignore the wishes of those of other views who also contribute and pay their taxes. This week's article that we at bloggoth would have written if we could be arsed is this one in the BBC:

In Western democracies our governments are aware that many people, perhaps even a majority, did not vote for them, and that they must therefore make themselves acceptable to their opponents.

Look at the pronouncements of the recently elected and recently deposed President Morsi of Egypt, however, and you will find little or nothing to suggest that he is aware that there are Egyptians who disagree with him and whose consent must be constantly solicited. It is impossible to discern from his speeches that there is a substantial minority of Egyptian citizens who are Christians, others who are atheists, others who, while following the Muslim way of life, would rather it did not make a show of itself as the state religion.

His view of elections is that they grant an absolute right to impose the ruling party's agenda, and that opponents have lost all right to an agenda of their own. And the response of the army is to say, not so - the only ones with a right to impose their agenda are we, who represent the interests of all Egyptians and not just those of the Muslim Brotherhood. The fact that we have to kill quite a few Egyptians to prove that we represent them is just one of those things.

In our own system the opposition is a legitimate part of the legislative process. Laws are seldom steam-rollered through Parliament without regard for disagreement, and the general assumption is that the final result will be a compromise, an attempt to reconcile the many conflicting interests

Update:

Egypt's ambassador has since summarised it rather well

Mr Kholy compared the one-year rule of Mr Morsi to the Islamist takeover of the Iranian state after the 1979 revolution and said that, like Nazism, the Muslim Brotherhood ideology sought to dominate Egyptian society.

Morsi was elected president and held office for one year but in that time he tried to make everything Muslim Brotherhood controlled. Egyptian culture over 5,000 years is a mix of religions and civilisations in which the Islamic religion is one ingredient of the Egyptian character, he said. The Muslim Brotherhood are like a Nazi group that demand that everything changes to their way.

Rape etc

To we at bloggoth, and to most of us who were youths in the 60s, Britain appears to be going backwards sexually into the religious dark ages. We have mentioned before the strange prudish behaviour of many younger men in the changing rooms at the gym. While us old farts wander to the shower with our saggy old bits on display and think nothing of it, many younger men take great effort to conceal their goodies, fiddling around under towels almost as if they were on a public beach. No, they don't all seem to be Muslims, Polish etc.

Then there seems to be a big clampdown on dogging. Just as well we are retired and don't need to go running in the evening as the car parks at two of our favourite jogging spots now close at 5.30 and there are big metal gates following complaints about sexual activities. Where is the logic in that? Joggers or dog walkers who stopped going to these places in the evening because they were offended by the goings-on now can't go even if they wanted to. Who cares what people get up to after dark? If you don't want to see it, don't look in the car window. Simples.

Now, following on from a furore about The Sun's page 3, there is the current nonsense about ′Lads' Mags′ on display at major stores. It beats we at bloggoth why people buy Nuts and similar magazines, they are as boring as hell. What is the point, sexually, of a mag with a few pictures of women in skimpy bikinis when anyone wanting a wank can go to xnxx.com and see proper close-up free videos of a lady getting it up the arse? Still, in what way are they harmful even to children? Nothing they can't see on any beach and, as on the beach, they won't be remotely interested.

How does perfectly normal sexual interest encourage contempt of women? Maybe those who think it does should have a look at the attitudes to women, their exclusion from society and the extraordinarily high levels of rape and domestic abuse in Muslim or third world Christian countries like Bangladesh or Uganda where pornography, or even images as mild as those in our lad's mags, would be totally illegal. Maybe they should look too at the levels of child abuse, including of young boys, in these same countries where normal outlets are not available. It puts the furore over Jimmy Saville here into perspective.

Men, women too, are interested in sex. Trying to suppress these natural urges totally is ridiculous and increases rather than reduces the rate of rape and the tendency to see women as sexual objects. The west seems to have it about right, reasonable sexual freedom with an emphasis on the right of women to make their own decisions, including those ladies who are very happy to accept large fees for partially displaying their assets in magazines.

Links:
Bangladesh: Sexual harassment is common place in garment factories and women are threatened with dismissal if they speak out.
Uganda Violence against women is endemic throughout Uganda.

Equality etc

We at bloggoth are totally in favour of every sort of equality, race, sex, religion, disability, sexual orientation, WHO, just as long as equality means what it should do, that everyone has an equal chance of reaping the rewards of the abilities they have and the effort they put into society. Real equality should not be about burdening others.

The state should not be following, encouraging or enforcing quotas for minority employment that completely ignore the low educational acheivements of some ethnic groups.
If they expect the same pay and progress, women should be available for the same hours as their male colleagues, not expect additional flexibility or time off for childcare.
If they expect the same pay and progress, the religious should do the same job as others, not expect time off for prayers or other special provisions to accord with their sensitivities.
Disability is something that can potentially affect any one of us and which we should all be sympathetic about but the cost of such sympathy is something that should be shared equally among all taxpayers, not fall upon individuals like colleagues or small business owners.

Why the hell not?

The government has insisted that immigration spot checks are not based on racial profiling.

Why not? The majority of illegal immigrants are not white. The number of illegals from places like Australia or Canada is negligible and there are relatively few from white countries like Russia or the non-EU Eastern European nations. For the very obvious reasons, that they are trying to get away from poverty, repression or conflict and because we already have so many immigrants from these areas that they can find a home away from home, the majority of illegals are from Africa and South Asia.

What is the f* point of wasting time questioning little old white ladies in the interests of equality when the great majority of illegals are going to be black, Asian or Oriental in appearance? It really is time we started applying a bit of logic to this issue. Yes, the police need to be careful not to unecessarily offend those legally here by treating them from the outset as if they are illegal (attitude is something the police have a major problem with in our experience) but "racial profiling" on this issue is only acting on facts.

Enforcing laws impartially, based on real evidence, is never racist. On the contrary, making exceptions solely because of colour is the true racism.

Irregular immigration.: Of the 1,950 number of people held in detention on 25 December 2004, some 39 per cent were from African countries, 28 per cent were from Asia, 15 per cent from Europe, 11 per cent from the Americas and seven per cent from the Middle East.

Student visa overstayers: Percentages of students in the 2004 cohort remaining in 2009 - Nigeria 51% Pakistan 48% India 44%

Right on!

This week's article we would have written if we could be arsed.

What an utterly ignorant twat Cable is!

Before he became a minister in the coalition we thought Vince Cable seemed a sensible sort but, with every pronouncement since, he has been showing how wrong that impression was. Like so many on the liberal left this man is purely ignorant and facts do not seem to penetrate his consciousness. Fair enough for an ordinary citizen maybe but, in a senior minister, it is unforgivable. If this was a government rather than a coalition where they have to take account of the ludicrous Liberal Democrats this man would be sacked for shear stupidity.

In his latest drivelling comments he has condemned the government′s latest campaign to tackle ilegal immigration, saying it is not a big problem. Is it TOO FUCKING MUCH for you to check the figures from the Home Office documents Cable??? The latest estimates, from the London School of Economics, put the central estimate of illegal migrants at 618,000, with a maximum of 863,000. That′s up to 1.4% of our population that has no right whatever to be here. If these migrants were spread evenly, about one person on many ordinary streets, villages or blocks of flats would be an illegal.

In practice, the situation is much worse because they are concentrated in certain areas and have an enormous impact on others who live there. Has he read about the Romanian shanty towns in London or the Romanian beggars in central London? What does he think they are costing our tourist trade? Is he aware of the huge problem of beds in sheds in parts of London like Southall?. This is not unusual, you can routinely find similar stories in other parts of the UK with high immigrant populations such as Leicestershire, or Birmingham. Even in rural and largely white areas, like my own home town or in Dorset, ethnically-owned shops, takeaways and restaurants employ illegal workers. In the TV program UK Border Force they sometimes find illegals in every single one they visit.

Why should the government not have an initiative to tackle what is a serious crime and a very major problem for the UK when they have very similar initiatives to tackle other problems like unlicenced vehicles, drink driving and even the rather minor one of watching TV without a licence? Are TV licence dodgers able to regularise their position with a text message? Why all this nonsense about amnesties? Should people who have got away without taxing their vehicles for three years be told they are now free to drive their untaxed cars without penalty? And should we be so concerned about the feelings of legal migrants when they are overwhelmingly the ones who are breaking the law by aiding these illegals - smuggling them in, housing them, employing them, hiding them, supplying phoney documents, taking part in fake marriages, helping them cheat on English exams etc?

Just why the hell should criminals get away with things or be treated leniently just becaúse they are not of white British origin? That's not anti racism Cable, that′s inverted racism.

PS

As for his blithering comments on the value of overseas students, maybe he cannot be arsed to check some other Home Office documents. Between 44% and 51% of such "students" from places like Nigeria, Pakistan and India do not return to their homelands when their courses finish. Even when the courses actually exist, student visas are a major route for illegal immigration.

Move the CCTV!

Real international news! No, not some routine Muslim atrocity, another bollux comment from Obummer, a tasteless joke about some plane/train/coach crash/fire in the third world etc (gumph!), this is a proper bit of international news of the sort you only get in the brilliant "The Sun". A female runner has been repeatedly defecating in somebody's backyard in New Mexico.

Reporting such a trivial thing to the press? How wierd can you get? If it had been we at bloggoth we would have said nothing, just installed a hidden high resolution camera at just the right place in front of that bin and hoped she kept on coming!

Well done chaps!

Given his obviously violent nature and physical strength there is no reason to think that any force used to restrain him was unjustified but we at bloggoth do not really care if it was or not. In common with most sane BRITISH people we would say well done prison officers! you deserve a pay rise.

It's a pity the necessary use of approved restraint techniques could not somehow result in Adebolajo having his eyeballs poked out and his bollox cut off.

What now?

What do other misfits do when they unexpectedly find themselves alone? Let's think:

We could turn into one of those wierd old chaps who just sits alone in a corner of the pub every night and mutters to himself.
We could drink ourselves to death. Naturally, the vodka would have to be very cheap.
We could go off backbacking around the world and see the places we always wanted to see. The bro. has offered us use of his camper van in the US although we would prefer a canoe on the Amazon.
We could buy ourselves a Russian wife like an inlaw did. Mind you, he was about ten years younger so probably had a more active libido and the cost was probably more worth it. Not that interested that often anymore so we would want something much cheaper. It seem the country with the lowest GDP per capita is the Democratic (hah! hah!) Republic of Congo. Maybe we could get a DCR wife at the pound shop. If she wasn't up to much we could always eat her. That's fairly normal in the DCR.
We could go out in style and gain the gratitude of the world by taking a few ghastly people with us. We are a chemical engineer, so constructing some suitable explosive devices should be easy enough. Although we can never remember peoples' names we remember technical stuff. In a conversation about how #1 son's E cigarette worked the other night we remembered that the latent heat of water was 2260 kJ/kg. The explosives are the easy part, it's getting the right bastards that is difficult. The problem with most terrorism is the indiscriminate nature of the attacks, targetting whole groups usually kills some nice people too. We would want to be more selective and take out specific bastard individuals. Let's see, how could we organise a phoney event that would bring together Tony Blair, Gordon Bown, Ed Balls, The Prince of Daftness, Anjem Choudary and a few thousand like him, Cliff Richard, Bob Crow and other crappy public sector union leaders but nobody else? We are plotting.

Back sometime

Not that anyone will notice. bloggoth will be dead for a while. Why? We are not a celebrity, politician, a cute little kid or Stephen F* Lawrence, so who cares?

At long last

We do sometimes get some sense from this government and forcing visitors from countries like India, Pakistan and Nigeria to pay a £3000 bond to discourage them from overstaying their visas is one bit. The problem with visitors from these three countries in particular has been known to our government for at least 6 years and tackling it is well overdue. The tables in this Home Office report regarding overstaying by students admitted on three year visas in 2004 shows that those from these three nations were by far the worst offenders. Figures for the 2004 cohort who were still in the UK in 2009 are: Nigeria 51%, Pakistan 48% and India 44%. The next worst, China, is way down at 24%.

Maybe those countries will retaliate as the critics say but, as far as India is concerned, they would probably think twice as they would only be damaging their own tourist industry. In any case, a bond is repayable to those who return as the vast majority of tourists do. As for Pakistan and Nigeria, what real British person in their right mind would go to either at present? Immigration groups are crying discrimination because this measure will not apply to applicants from white Commonwealth nations but it is simply about facts; not suprisingly, given that their own countries are not poverty stricken, backward and violent places, Australia, New Zealand etc don't appear on the list at all.

The usual suspects will always think up ways to try and prevent the UK having effective immigration controls and, rather than listen to their garbage, it is more relevant to look at reality. A similar bond system has been in use in Australia since the early 90s and works pretty well. And just to counter the nonsense of this being a "right wing measure" the proposal has come from the Lib-Dems.

The birdies go tweet, tweet, tweet

Not sure why this song popped into my head during my annual shower but it's great. Many versions but it's got to be Nat vs Ella. Or click both and have a duet! PS No we are not THAT old!

More suppression of the truth - part XXX

No idea about Pamela Geller but what better illustration of the supression of TRUTH is there than attempts to exclude Robert Spencer from the UK?. Spencer is behind Jihad Watch to which we link at left and, as with the others there, there is none of that counter-productive "Peedophile Prophet" or "Religion of Piss" stuff that some lesser known bloggers go in for. More importantly, none of those assertions that all Muslims are closet extremists, or anything else that we can see, that might deliberately encourage attacks on ordinary people.

What Jihad Watch does do is report the realities as accurately as any other media outlet, whether it's the text from the Quran that supports the irrational and frequently repulsive dogma of this political creed or, more importantly, the truth of what Islamists are actually doing to others throughout the world. Almost every article on Jihad Watch is about some specific news item with links to sources in the mainstream press. If somebody is making this stuff up, it certainly isn't Spencer, he is simply drawing the obvious and logical conclusions about Islam's nature from the appalling things that it is doing, day in and day out, and in so many parts of the world. Others do terrible things in the name of their beliefs too but only Islam does them with such frequency, only Islam has such an international consistency in the nature of the crimes committed in its name.

Children are often casualties of conflict and may be deliberately killed when hatred of a supposed enemy reaches sufficient pitch but what other group today, except Islamists, cold bloodedly targets children for supposed insults or not following the correct line as in this week's cases, here and here? These are not isolated events as this list indicates; Israel, Iraq or Afghanistan are the sites of most terrorist incidents targetting children over the last ten years. There are minorities elsewhere in the world who are marginalised or who live in fear but where can you find such consistent hatred of others for the same reason in a number of nations, apart from that of non-Muslims in Islamic countries? See this previous thread for links.

This castigation of those who collate and accurately report on the realities without indulging in inflamatory rhetoric against ordinary Muslims is ludicrous. Humanity being what it is, any negative comment whatever on a group may occasionally result in undesirable consequences but in the tolerant UK that is usually no more than a glare at a woman in a Niqab, an occasional racist epithet or a rant on Twitter. To avoid that possibility should we really be turning a blind eye to marginalisation and violence against millions worldwide? When attacks on Muslim have gone further than that, like the recent burning of some mosques and Islamic centres, it is the action of Muslims, not comments by bloggers or rallies by the EDL, that have triggered them. They, and the ones who have radicalised and inflamed them, are the ones that need to be arrested, excluded or expelled from the UK, not people like Spencer.

PS. Here we go Robert, this is the acceptable way to say things if you want to be let into the UK to discuss the wonders of diversity at WI meetings. The new Arsebishop of Canterbury is to visit the Middle east and has blandly commented on "the pressures on its Christian communities". Excellent, gives the impression that they are facing difficulties due to inflation, shortage of toilet paper, stuff like that. The Lord Arsebishopness would never think of saying that Christianity in the Middle East is being wiped out by Islam:

The lion’s share of persecution faced by Christians arises in countries where Islam is the dominant faith, the report says, quoting estimates that between a half and two-thirds of Christians in the Middle East have left the region or been killed in the past century.

There is now a serious risk that Christianity will disappear from its biblical heartlands, it claims.

The report shows that Muslim-majority states make up 12 of the 20 countries judged to be unfree on the grounds of religious tolerance by Freedom House, the human rights think tank.

Fool proof

We at bloggoth have only ever bothered with one online forum and rarely bother with that these days. There are a few exceptions but, for the most part, people will not be persuaded from their own beliefs and it does not matter one iota what references you cite or how reputable or unbiased the sources are. Most people are irrational and rational argument is mostly a waste of time. You can post a whole list of links that show the realities of any topic and it's a bit like throwing a pebble into a stream, the argument just flows around them. One thing that almost guarantees that nobody will respond to a post is a link to sound facts, they prefer to carry on the "argument" with those whose opinions are as fact-free as their own.

This youtube video illustrates just how pointless facts and realities are in forming opinions. A number of people who believed they were skilled at dowsing were asked to employ their skills to detect which one of five barrels had water in. Not surprisingly, none performed any better than one would expect from random chance. What was rather more surprising is that this did not cause any of them to doubt their dowsing skills. There is nothing unusual about these individuals, whether it's belief in dowsing, Ouija boards, seances, wierd cures, fake gadgets or whatever, even people who are sincere and highly intelligent will fool themselves. If a belief in something as simple and unimportant as dowsing cannot by shaken by proof that it does not work what chance is there of convincing people that their views on religion or political ideology may be equally flawed?

We tell ourselves that the rational approach to any disagreement with others should be reasoned debate but what is rational about wasting one's time? Maybe the truly rational approach is to get a gun and shoot 'em.

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