´óÏó´«Ã½

'...a joke doing the rounds of the City this afternoon'

Yes, saw that this morning in the Telegraph, too:



I guess it's understandable it's not a must-read publication, mind...



It will be interesting to see who is 'free' to be 'selected' to comment on Sir Ian Blair's resignation.

...a joke...

reminds me of the one posted on pauls blog on 25 Sep 2008? :)


so here's another oldie

Q: How many journalists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Ans : Three. One to report it as an inspired government program to bring light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government plot to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a prize for reporting that Electric Company hired a light bulb assassin to break the bulb in the first place.

Not a joke (well...), but a question or two:

´óÏó´«Ã½ - Reaction: Met chief's resignation -



DOMINIC GRIEVE, SHADOW HOME SECRETARY
"This is the right decision....

TONY MCNULTY, POLICING MINISTER
"Responding to Conservative criticisms: "I'm afraid that shows the profound ignorance..."

I do query, vis-a-vis ongoing pondering on the role of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ and its partcipation in creating and indeed seemingly often trying to shape events rather than simply reporting upon them, why I only notice one example of a reaction opportunity being provided within what was surely meant to be isolated quotes on the main issue at hand, namely the resignation.

How? Why? Does this only happen online? I'm sure tonight we will get a good representation of views with all afforded fair opportunity to speak and discuss.

Having stayed up all night to watch the vote in the US Senate, my new hero is
Senator Bernie Sanders (independent).

Is he the only socialist in the US Senate?
I think we need a profile and for balance
perhaps a profile of that other emerging
star Congressman Barney Franks.

With all these real characters on The Hill,
why does Newsnight fob us off with the
policy wonks instead of interviewing the
real legislators in the US who are surely
much more entertaining - and informed?

Enjoyed Jeremy's interview with French
Finance Minister Christine Lagarde last
night ..... superb! She speaks English
as well as Anthony Eden spoke French!

Looking forward to the interview with Gore Vidal - as promised?

PIDGEON POST

When in London, in 1956, for A-level practical exams (Phys and Chem) I saw this sign in a milliners window: "A SMALL DEPOSIT SECURES YOUR HAT".

I failed the exams but the trip was worthwhile. . .

Blair resignation....

Surely if an elected public official can't work with an unelected public official the unelected has to go so.... why the fuss? Also the mayor should have complete control of policing because he can't fully represent the electorate who put him there so kl is talkin rubbish.

Later....
Saqqara

The piece of the economy tonight was utter lunacy that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ should be ashamed of.

The piece on peterborough was a story looking for evidence, the reporter used the word depression when we are not even in recession yet. The poor bloke who works in furniture sales has my sympathy but it is hardly suprising that jobs are scarce in a sector so dependent on the housing market. Such job losses are hardly evicdence necesscarily of an overall recession let alone a depression.

This piece was a archetypal example of how the media is talking down the economy and talking up peoples fear of the future in the chase of a dramatic headline and this damages us all.

The people talking of moving their few thousands of quid into Irish banks and/or purchasing a pot of gold to hide under their bed is a natural reaction to such doom laden headlines but given not a penny has been lost or indeed could be lost unless you are rich and have more than £35000 per bank.

Did anyone else notice Brian Paddick's caption as '... Ass Commissioner'? Wondering if this was an intentional joke about his sexuality?

'7. At 11:00pm on 02 Oct 2008, saqqara wrote:

Surely if an elected public official can't work with an unelected public official the unelected has to go so.... why the fuss? '

I suppose if you look at who has a vested interest in making one, and being the ones to transmit it, there is some logic.

To be fair, it is a big story.

So I actually stayed up to watch 'live'.

For a start, I was pleasantly surprised that we were not given the usual Newsnight 'twofer'.

One from each main party affiliation and, er, now there's a surprise, Mr. Livingstone. I guess he was, once, relevant, and might be allowed a place at the table. At least we didn't get just him!

However, to this viewer it all went predictably, and depressingly true to form.

All so desperate to be PC about a PC PC.

Four men who each only wanted to get some pet notion across and who, remarkably, all managed to only disagree with each other.

I thought Mr. Livingstone made a key point, if mainly about his mindset, that the most important thing was that the Mayor should have been on every media outlet 'explaining' (did he not hold a news conference? Such as myself and Saqqara seem to have understood the key aspects. And the ´óÏó´«Ã½ HYS page is fairly clear that most grasped the concept), and especially on this show to answer to the ex-mayor.

I could wonder if this logic might extend to another senior political leader often named for an absent cat?

Mr. McNulty was full of bluster mainly about why others should shut up and swallow the abilities of a person who... at the very least... has a dirty great, long cloud hanging of their abilities and actions.

I think a lot of what is wrong with this country is the total lack of accountability, at senior level, in the civil service profession. No matter how inept, no matter how unable to attract a following, no matter how screwed up the function would be if the team they are part of is/will be unable to work together, the public is expected to just live with them. I have never worked in any organisation where incompatible leaders have been effective.

Then we have Mr. Paddick, who showed why he polled as he did, but also tried to play up the fact this was 'political'. Well, D'uh. It was hugely political before, and will be again. Did Mayor Johnson not get voted in on a ticket that included a stated lack of confidence in the Commissioner?

Maybe crime has 'gone down', but one swallow does not a summer make. Sir Ian Blair was not, I imagine, the only person policing the streets. Is it possible that crime might have gone down even further with another in command? There may have been one less violent death on the books.

And finally the Mayor's office representative. Rather telling of the political climate that he didn't seem to give a stuff. So he justified their position poorly for me at least, and for any pol to say that he wasn't there to explain anything was not the best way to get this democratic system advocate onside.

And he should have been pulled up on this a lot more than just the off-camera harrumphs from the others.

However, the attempt to portray this as political manipulation setting a dire precedent was silly. If you have a public servant doing a good job, over a long period, with the support of their subordinates, and the faith of the people they serve, and then, on whim, a new political appointee decides to ditch them just because of their personal beliefs, I'm up there with you on the barricades. But if you are looking at action as a result of protracted controversy, lack of support at every quarter, a history of 'problems' and some policy preferences at odds with the elected superior, then... get real.

This seems to me no more a 'plot' than a process, and the 'row' is only being stirred within a very, very small community.

But don't let that stop you.

Web Team: When one clicks on a userid and is taken to the user's profile/archive of posts, if one clicks on 'Older' at the foot of the first page, one is taken back in multiples of 25 posts, meanig that many posts are skipped. Is this intentional, or is it a bug/oversight? [One can edit the skip number a the end of the URL I suppose, but I suspect that many won't notice this.]

ELEPHANT STILL AWOL (#10)

Ho JunkkMale! Your post comprehensively affirms absence of VIRTUE, INTEGRITY, HUMILITY, WISDOM, ALTRUISM, HONOUR, TRUSTWORTHINESS et al, where such are so desperately needed.

MANY WON'T NOTICE (#11)

I had never spotted 'older' JJ - thanks. As for the point about skipped posts and editing the skip number at the URL-end - you lost me. Do you reckon I need an IQ test efore being allowed on here? (:o)

DUE DILIGENCE

Barrie (#13) No. Just the ability to do as one is instructed and pay close attention to behaviour and its outcome once in a while ;-)

1. Click on your userid Barriesingleton
2. Go to Older and click
3. Observe URL at top of the screen:
/blogs/profile/?userid=11646323&skip=25

Edit the 25 to a lower number (maybe having counted the numer on the page you have just left?).

Remember the links to the material on Hyperbolic Discounting in the context of candy from babies (mortgages from sub-prime clients)? Herrnstein (Skinner's successor) and chums at Harvard worked all that out from operant work with rats and pigeons in the 50s-70s. Not only did Herrnstein stick his neck out with all his work on IQ, social class and genes (think sub-prime), but he (and colleagues) also did most of the seminal work which gave rise to Behavioural Economics in the 80s and 90s, and I don't believe for a second that managers in the Investment Banking business didn't see a golden opportunity here.... Hence all the immigration, and females in the workplace too (debt slavery and the birthrate)?

So what if they default, we'll have passed the stinky parcels on by then (if we're smart), and hey..if it wrecks the economy already... whose economy?

...manana.

DO YOU DO SURROGATE MOTHERING JJ?

Many thanks - stuff is so simple when it is explained.

SO: we have the Machiavellian master- fiddlers and the establishment and some smart entrepreneurs - all vastly wealthy.
Meanwhile the rest keep getting poorer, more indebted to the above.

Presumably the extended ruling classes are breeding sufficiently and with 'good breeding stock'? (Kind Hearts and Coronets.) So is it - more or less - the middle classes that are being sunk by dysgenics?

Barrie (#15) "So is it - more or less - the middle classes that are being sunk by dysgenics?"

It rather looks that way doesn't it? But read this highly of 'The Bell Curve' (1994) and take my word for it, this is VERY dirty politics, and there were many like it at the time. The overall message of 'The Bell Curve', however, is sound, and recent UK population level data bears this out every single year with a SATs N of about 560,000.

If read carefully, you'll see a battle between initially bemused and then very angry empirical scientists who go out of their way to try to falsify their own conjectures but have been left with these findings vs. politically motivated (often unwitting no doubt) Trotskyites/anarcho-capitalists who have a vested interest in not letting too many of their golden geese appreciate what's really being done to them.

The way this works, I suggest, is that it counts on most of the victims NOT grasping what's being done, and those who might grasp what's being done to the victims having it made much more difficult for them to grasp by a highly aversive, censuring 'political correctness' which essentially uses post WWII anti-German propaganda (psychological warfare) to make rational thought on this matter all but impossible. It was used to de-nazify Germany in the late 40s, but note that anti-Nazi is pro-free-market (which is also pro-Trotskyite but anti-Stalinist).

One needs to look very carefully, i.e. at the population level of higher education to see how those with 5 or more A-C grades at GCSE can, and do, go on to do A levels and ultimately university degrees. This takes the brighter half of the population and delays motherhood for those females relative to those in the lower half of the distribution. It thereby tilts the population distribution so over time it swells the underclass/proletariat (immigration also contributes, hence the anti-racism along with anti-sexism?) which perniciously accumulates over generations. Note the potential votes.

In (liberal) democracies, this is the class easiest to shape/condition/persuade/milk is it not? It's where 'New' Labour looks for its votes (in the urban areas) and it's where their (and the Conservatives') backers in commerce make their money most easily (it's not just mortgage brokers who are dodgery salespersons, look at what's on offer, and at what APRs, at the supermarkets, leaving aside the health damaging booze and high calorific food). Who, (looking at geo-politics) are the current Masters of The Universe (aka The Ruling Class)? Are they not the anarcho-capitalist free-marketeers who benefit from hoards of gullible consumers eagerly endebting themselves (through their own 'choice' of course). Look at the Lisbon Treaty. What does it basically do? It de-nationalises all member countries and limits their sovereign powers does it not? It does this whilst effectively making free-market anarcho-capitalist liberal-democracy the only acceptable political system (there may be 'parties' but they are all basically the same these days are they not?).

Finally, note how eugenics is proscribed by the Human Rights charter, thereby guaranteeing dysgenesis...

BELL CURVE - RINGING (UN)ENDORSEMENT

I understood a fair bit of that JJ - your effort appreciated. I followed the link also - very thought provoking. I won't go leading off.
I gather 'bell curvers' see the English 'indigene' as about third or fourth from top; is that right? I would take that as a marker for objective enquiry myself.

Incidentally, is any one arguing that a Berkshire lad, with 100s of years of ancestry on the 'Chilblain Isles', could ever win the Olympic 100 metres?