Archive for February, 2012

1+1=2 but 1,000,000+1,000,000=history

Saturday, February 25th, 2012

The popular media are full of ‘news’ about Greek finances and their impact on the political landscape of Europe and beyond;

World Bank chief Robert Zoellick: Greece’s €130bn bailout merely buys it time

Robert Zoellick, the outgoing President of the World Bank, has warned that Greece’s latest €130bn (£108bn) bailout would merely buy it time, adding that a European recession would hamper crucial reforms needed to lift the area out of the crisis.

The desperate acts of vainglorious politicians (not to mention the blinkered journalists who insist political /economic restructuring is the big story here) are of interest for one reason only: to remind us of that feature noted by Thomas Carlyle in his opus of 1837.

Hunger and nakedness and righteous oppression lying heavy on 25 million hearts: this, not the wounded vanities or contradicted philosophies of philosophical advocates, rich shopkeepers, rural noblesse, was the prime mover in the French revolution; as the like will be in all such revolutions, in all countries.

I am indebted to Edward Hallett Carr and his magnificent lectures collected in ‘What Is History?’ for selecting this quote in his discussion that history is ‘a matter of numbers’.

Athens mayhem raises fears of Greek social explosion

(Reuters) – Greek political leaders say the nation must accept yet more punishing austerity or face a social explosion, but after a night of violence and destruction in Athens, some people fear this explosion may already be about to begin.

‘Punishing austerity’ lies heavy on more hearts every day. The number grows. History awaits.

Back To Mystery City

Monday, February 13th, 2012

at least they don't have cctv

Ice and Sun

Sunday, February 12th, 2012

LOLcaps

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

You may have seen there is ‘outrage’ from leftists and liberals in the UK that state handouts – benefits – are proposed to be capped at £24,000 per year. George Monbiot, for example, bleats until his green-eyes pop out of his misguided head about the rich, hard-working business people who should be punished for earning their money. Just when you think he has proposed the most stupid idea possible, he comes up with, instead of a benefits cap, a wages cap!

But back to benefits.

£24,000 net equivalent to an income of over £32,000 per year for a working family. Unfortunately many benefits claimants are sadly unable to survive on such a meagre sum when having to not work or contribute meaningfully to society for the privilege of receiving the money.

The BBQ, of all people, have provided an example of how a family would be affected by having their benefits reduced from over £30,000 to the proposed cap of just £24,000.

So, should tax-payers support these people? Let’s see how they struggle…

Current benefits: £30, 284 of money taken under threat of force from people who work for a living. More than half of it just as a reward for having bred uncontrollably.

£91 per week ‘other outgoings’: to keep the kids happy via consumerism, apparently. You don’t believe the crap about school trips, every week, do you?

£20 per week ‘entertainment’: your taxes buy this man a night out at the pub. Every week. Does he deserve this respite from his seven children and wife? Would you give him that money charitably?

£15 per week on SKY TV: ‘We get the Sky Movies package because we’re stuck in the house all week – otherwise we wouldn’t have any entertainment.’  How did people survive before SKY TV? Will the family unit collapse if they have to resort to library books and freeview? Or talking to each other, heaven forbid!

£30 transport: his eldest son is scamming him for most of this if he believes 5 return bus rides to college are £30.

£32 per week on mobiles: ‘My wife and I have mobile phones, and so do all of the teenage children. You try telling teenagers they’re going to have to do without their mobiles and there’ll be hell to pay.’ Your taxes are saving this man from growing a pair and keeping his children in a world of ‘whine and it shall be given’.

Energy: ‘ If they do cut our benefit we are going to have to choose between eating and heating the house properly.’ Or choose between mobiles and heating. Or beer and heating. Or fags and heating. NEVER believe these sob stories from ill-disciplined and spineless, willpower-lacking, idiocracy-generating fuckwits.

Rent £76 per week: As your state-sponsored incubus notes, this would be much more expensive were it private. Hence you are ACTUALLY paying much more than the £76 per week, as you are subsidizing the housing cost already, before a small portion of the cost is charged to, and then reclaimed by and from, our father-of-seven. All that admin costs too.

Shopping £240 per week. Includes food and household goods, 24 cans of lager, 200 cigarettes and a large pouch of tobacco. Has ‘Ray’ sent you so much as a card to say thanks for the fags and booze you buy him every week? And of course none of these ‘essentials’ could be sacrificed, which makes these proposed benefits cuts so damaging to people like Ray.

 

It’s easy to pick on people like Ray, and so it should be! He moans that “The market for my skills dried up 10 years ago – there’s a total lack of work in my area of expertise.” but has spent TEN YEARS breeding and little else. Retrain, do menial work, start a business, anything!

Stop supporting Ray and his work-shy ilk and let him remember where he left his self-respect, or let him rot in his own filth, before you find yourself sat at home on your recliner toilet chair watching nothing but this.