Mental graffiti of a sporadically sarcastic rat who's finally quit the UK's race and now Canadian Citizen on the wet coast of British Columbia, Canada. Resigned to a certain sense of all the posts on this blog having a particular quality of déjà vu. Again.
All written material Copyright Bill Sticker 2007-2011,
whatever.
Links are fine, but the words are mine
Well, if you listen to some sources, those who believe in the sovereign rights of the individual are filthy 'right wing' scum. Ookay, does this mean that the following tenets of liberty are evil, such as the right of individuals to;
a) Control their own lives and bodies b) Own pretty much what they want from their own efforts c) Talk to who they like, when they like d) Go where they want
So long as no one does witting harm to others, and makes reparation for same if they do.
So that belief set is somehow very bad, eh?
Hmm....... Yet when you weigh up the alternatives, like;
a) Cradle to grave subjugation by others b) Collectivisation, regardless of contribution c) No right to opinions or associations but those approved by 'superiors' d) Travel and recreation only if sanctioned by 'superiors'
Well, that doesn't seem so great to me. Besides, hasn't this type of society been tried several times during the 20th century and failed miserably? If it was so great, then why did the Soviets need Gulags for dissidents?
No, if Liberty and belief in the rights of the individual is 'right-wing' then I'm a filthy right wing scumbag (Swivel-eyed only when specifically called upon - as my Mum said; "If the wind changes you'll stick like it") and proud of it.
Following yet another attack of comment spam, my reader is reminded that comment moderation only applies on posts over 48 hours old.
Usual rules apply; pointless ad homs and commercial spam, no matter how disguised, will be deleted without publication. Pertinent, even opposing views, will be published providing they play the ball, not the man. How much more simple do you want?
Much as I share some of the widespread distaste for Bankers' economic misdeeds, I can't help but feel Holby's latest wheeze won't work, even if it is sanctioned by such luminaries as Eric Cantona.
The plan appears to be that everyone should go to their bank or building society on the 7th of December 2010 and withdraw as much money as they can, thus causing the banking system to implode or collapse. The idea presumably is to somehow punish all those greedy bankers for causing the current economic crisis.
If anyone can be bothered to read this, might I say that everyone withdrawing all their money might turn out to be a massive economic own goal.
My reasoning is as follows; Because money is the means of exchange, it's value is relative. In itself, it is not a commodity, but rather an enumeration of work done. Linking it's value to a specific commodity, say gold, is only useful as long as gold is esteemed at a certain value. If gold were to become worthless because it was no longer considered as a valid means of exchange, then any currency linked to it would also lose it's purchasing power. Therefore; money is not a commodity in itself, more a measure of relative value. In short; a currency is only worth what is agreed. If enough people decide that a currency is worthless and sell lots of it for other currencies, its value drops like a rock into a gravitational singularity.
Furthermore, if people do like Holby suggests and withdraw all their money, in order to safeguard the interests of those people who own the banks and various politicians will take steps to 'safeguard the money supply' by ordering the printing of more money so that the banks don't go short. The resulting inflation will only hurt those who withdraw their money only to stuff it into a metaphorical mattress. Likewise, buying items that may hold their worth against inflation, such as land or other commodities, will only protect their investment so long as those commodities are 'agreed' to be worth that much.
So making an assumption that Holby and chums do manage to crash the banking system, the money they've withdrawn, without the backing institutions as personified by those 'eeevil bankers' automatically becomes valueless, and all the poor buggers still with savings lose everything. Take enough money out of an economic system and you end up rather like in Weimar Germany. Because, rather like Space and Time are inextricably bound together, so are Banks and Money. Whether you like it or not, the Banks are the money.
Kind of like trying to stop time, and then finding out all the rules supporting your little pocket of space / time no longer apply, and so by proxy, neither do you. Especially true for those with an urban lifestyle and no real material holdings in land or foodstuffs. That's if you ask me. Not that anyone will of course.
We have snow, at sea level. Yesterday, on the road from Port Renfrew to Lake Cowichan and Duncan we saw snow up on the logging roads, this morning it's down at our level to the waterfront. Only a couple of inches, but we don't normally get snow this early.
As all our neighbours say with a derisive laugh; "Global warming, eh?"
No-one is fooled any more. Man made Climate Change / Global Warming / Climate Disruption was never about science, only politics and the biggest theft in history. Anyone who still claims it will be the death of us all deserves a snowball in the face. With a rock in it as a courtesy extra. Just to drive the message home.
Oo look, people who want to pin the world's woes on climate change strike again. Failing that, their paper is being woefully misrepresented in the lamestream. Sad to say, all the articles I've seen so far written on the subject are complete and utter rubbish. Sad, lazy cut and paste journalism strikes again.
Here's why;
The Great White Shark, or Carcharodon carcharias, is a carnivorous predator that generally feeds on various sea mammals of all sizes, including snacking on the occasional unwary surfer or scuba diver. They've even been observed attacking some species of Whale. According to my old Game Fishing tome, written by a long time hunter of Sharks, Great Whites can be found as far north as the North Atlantic drift goes, right down to the equator, thence south of Cape Town. Their distribution is global, eschewing only the coldest waters. They follow the migrations of Tuna, Sea Lions, Seals, Turtles and anything remotely shark bite sized. To blame their distribution solely on changes in the climate is quite frankly, nonsense.
Whites are, for their single minded drive, a species with a remarkably developed sensory system. To say that the Mediterranean branch got 'lost' is misleading. Changes in temperature might have altered the food chain so that the various prey species altered their migration paths, but the Whites never got directionally challenged, waylaid, or distracted by a particularly attractive shoal of Mullet. They knew exactly what they were after. Food. Much of it Sea Mammals.
Bloody hell. I haven't even got a degree, and even I know that much.
Not that anyone really reads my frequent forays into frustration with the world, but then this blog is my daily toxic thought dump, a venting of the frustrations that would otherwise cost me a fortune in shirts and furniture.
For example, the latest little annoyance is the news that we may all be subject to interrogation over a 'happiness quotient'. Which ironically may well become a cause of more unhappiness than intended, the law of unintended consequences being what it is.
Imagine the following scenario. Our hero Bill Sticker, humming a happy little tune to himself as he works, has his train of thought momentarily interrupted by the telephone ringing. Being an innocent soul (Heh), he picks up the handset and answers cheerily, as he is wont to do. "Y'ello!" (Don't ask me why, I just do, okay?) Only to be met by one of those awful autodialler pauses before a young female telemarketers voice greets him. At this juncture, Bill's usual cheery demeanour undergoes a sudden sea change. Driven by a sinking prescient feeling, his brow tightens, his eyes redden, teeth clench and muscles knot. "Hi!" Says the friendly telemarketer. "I'm conducting a survey on people's happiness." "I was fine until you called." Vouchsafes the hero of this piece. "Oh." Says the manically chirpy telemarketer. "Good day." Bill speaks in tones of disdainful dismissal before shutting off the call. He stops for a cup of tea before settling down to work once more. An hour later, he is busily 'in the zone' and humming contentedly as he works. Again, the phone rings, again he answers it cheerily before the autodialler pause kicks off another mood swing. "Hello" Says the chirpy person on the other end of the line. "Is that Mr Willyam Striker?" "Sort of." Responds our hero dubiously. Third hand mailing lists strike again. "This is the UK Government calling to see if you're okay." "Why?" Huh? A transatlantic call for this? "Well we just want to know how happy you are." I was until you called me. "Why?" Is this taxpayer funded? "Well, er, it's important to us." "Why?" You're using taxpayer dollar for this idiocy aren't you? "Well, it's part of a National survey on happiness. Can you tell me on a score of one to ten how happy you are, using one as very unhappy and ten as very happy indeed?" "Right now?" "Yes please." "You interrupted my work, which I was quite enjoying, to ask me a stupid childish question like how happy I am?" "Well..." "Minus ten." You just had to ask didn't you? "Sorry?" "On a happiness score of one to ten, I'm telling you my happiness score, right at this moment, is minus ten." Now go away. "I can't report that." "It is the only figure I am willing to give you. I was content, now I am not." "So you're saying this call has caused you discontent?" "Yes." Now leave me in peace, please. "How would you score your contentedness when you were content, then?" "AAAAAAARRRGGHHHHH!!!!!" A sudden dopplering noise followed by a crash of plastic and a dying electronic bleep signals the premature death of an innocent telephone handset. There is the sound of ripping cloth, a deafening snarl or pure rage, followed by the heavy breathing grunt of bellicose incandescence along with smashing masonry and receding heavy footsteps. Dog hides under sofa.
You know, if a government tries to meddle in people's lives at this level while the economy is in the toilet and public spending is still out of control, I'd say they'd just passed their sell by date.
..... Falling over certain Libertarian corners of the blogosphere. If the disparate web pages hosted on servers all over the place can be said to have corners. In particular the swearbloggers appear to be losing their voices in despair over the continual, if predictable, failure of politicians to heed the many voices of warning. Mr Eugenides has shut up shop, Obnoxio the Clown, even the near indefatigable Devil's Kitchen Knife says he's having trouble with mustering the anger any more.
Can't say I blame them. The time is long since past to be making plans and garnering resources to pack up and ship out of what may well become the next great prison-state.
My own visit to England a few weeks ago brought it home with a bang. Even a train journey into a medium sized British city showed a land blighted with CCTV and excess security checks. ANPR cameras all over the place around the major urban centres, the insidious Average Speed Cameras. Rarely did I see a proper policeman on foot patrol. Just the blank, anonymous, unremitting glassy stare of wall to wall surveillance. Even if the images are little better than useless at catching the real bad guys.
Another sinister pointer is when the powers that be think they can interfere in the appointments of a minor political party, you know the system is going to hell.
The whole of the UK is encrusted with rules upon rules, layers upon layers of suspicion that made me feel grubby after only a few minutes. It also left me with the distinct urge to scrub my skin clean from the inside every time I got back to our hotel room. A kind of patina has covered the land of my birth. A scummy layer that pollutes everything it touches. Those within it's cloying embrace will not notice because the changes have been so gradual, but changes there have been, and not for the better. Even old friends seemed tarnished by living there. Such is the New Labour legacy, and the Coalition appear to be continuing down the same sorry street.
It's the same shit, different day. No wonder some of the strongest voices are falling silent.
Dropped by the Icelandic Met office site today to see this interesting little patch of tremors. The volcano in question is Öræfajökull (I think) which had its last big eruption in 1362. As always, the caveat remains that tremors alone do not an eruption make. Without data on ground deformation, yadada, yadada, no prediction can be made. So there. Although the seismic activity is several kilometres down, so for the moment an eruption seems unlikely. However, that judgement call is for the real volcano experts, not a dilettante like me.
You know what? I love these Icelandic place names, if only for the perverse schadenfreude of watching lamestream media newsreaders and various pumped up pundits swallow their own tongues trying to pronounce them.
Having watched footage of rioting students in London, I'm minded to make one of my 'modest proposals' with regards to University education. Whilst I never had the privilege of going to University, for privilege it is, I've formed the opinion that some things are best taught at University and others are just a waste of classroom time.
Universities down the centuries have nurtured great minds and helped make superb advances in some subjects, but in others, I wonder why they bother. Now subjects like Medicine, Law, Physics, Geology, and all the 'hard' science courses, even Engineering, can be taught to degree level. No problem there. I even think there is a very sound economic case for free education for those who will contribute to the wealth and well being of society far better for having had highly specialised teaching. Even commercial courses should have some discounted fee structure, this is only sensible and proper. It also makes sound commercial sense. Certain cultural courses like Languages, History, and what are called 'The Classics' are not without value and should likewise be well funded by the public purse.
On the other hand, there are subjects which Universities should receive no funding for whatsoever, and no grants or loans should be available for them. The ones I have in mind are PPE's (Political Science) and the various 'soft' subjects such as the 'Social Sciences'. Whilst there will always be a need for Physicists and other scientific researchers, Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers and Business Managers, the rest can go hang. Why should the University system be used to fund what are little better than vanity degrees? It merely devalues the degree as a mark of academic excellence.
I'm in favour of a free higher education for those of an academic and / or high level technical bent. What I'm not in favour of is sending the world and his / her / it's partner of choice through a system better suited for the brightest and best.
Today, with a light frosting of snow on nearby mountains, I'm taking time out to briefly review what is happening that may be cause for real hope and change, not the ersatz stuff promised by a certain politicians speechwriters.
All around, the proponents of man made Catastrophic Global Warming / Climate Change / Disruption have discovered the feet of clay attached to their god. The consensus that never was is shown up for the fraud it always has been.
In the US, the statists have found themselves dethroned by a loose coalition of activists. The advocates of individual freedom and responsibility, long despised and disparaged, are gaining mainstream credibility.
It's more a feeling than anything else, but I'm hopeful enough to think that this is an 'El Alemain' moment. Not a victory. For the war against the statist busybodies is far from over, but a turning point nonetheless. The statist bandwagon, having reached its highest ebb, has run out of money. It has no choice but to retreat.
Mrs S and I were test driving 4x4's yesterday, and got to off topic conversation with the salesperson as we put a couple of vehicles through their paces.
"So." Says our very chatty salesperson. "How does it work with remembrance day in England." "It's usually the closest Sunday." Said Mrs S as we swung through a short series of S-bends and briskly up a hill with my foot moving floorwards. "So does everything shut down like over here on the eleventh?" "No. It's business as usual." Replied Mrs S. There was a slight pause. "But that's disrespectful." Said slightly shocked salesperson.
Me, I just smiled and kept driving. God, I love this place.
The symbol of our forefathers gone. A name concurrent with my own is on the Menin gate.
About generations sacrificed to the mad ambitions of others.....
About the people who were forever changed, melted in the crucible of war, hardened by the austerities that followed, and tempered by experience....
Yes, the poppy worn on remembrance day should be red as blood, with a black spot of mourning at it's centre......
Anyone who wears a white poppy on Remembrance day might as well be wearing a white feather......
Anyone breaking the two minutes silence with profanity or insult is a coward and unworthy of civilised company.......
Anyone who stands silent is keeping faith with those who died so that future generations might have the right to praise them.......
The red poppy gives thanks for peace, and the almost vain hope that we will not make the same mistakes again.......
The red poppy is a symbol of thanks for family and friends who return safely from harms way.......
Wearing the red poppy declares brotherhood with those gone before.....
Buying a red poppy raises funds for those wounded in the service of others......
Now silence, head bowed, and a prayer for your forefathers, no matter what their god or yours. We are their beneficiaries and should show proper gratitude.... It is their due, and our tithe.
The current student protest in London has been almost inevitably hijacked by rentamob who are venting their pointless fury on CCHQ The news the rentarioters didn't do it to Labour when tuition fees were introduced in 2004 is no surprise.
I know our kids aren't there as we've just been talking to them on Skype. They're in their final year and already funded. They've also been doing some voluntary work today. Even though the hike in fees has left them feeling rather ticked off.
Mostly the protesters are, according to youngest, "Politics students." Who are being bussed down to London.
I'm just glad our two have found better, more positive, things to do than simply shout and bust things up. They're also too busy making plans for Christmas parties in Vancouver this year. The rewards will come to them as they're putting in the graft rather than wait until two weeks before finals and panicking.
Today I have been reminding myself of the work of poets and authors two millennia gone. How apposite their meaning is even now.
I itch to depart for the West and the limitless sea, Each time green pretenders to wisdom and virtue Who live in falsehood, dare spout of 'denial'.
The opening lines of Juvenal's second Satire. Paraphrased and bowdlerised to extinction by me.
For anyone vaguely interested, the actual opening reads like this;
Vltra Sauromatas fugere hinc libet et glacialem Oceanum, Quotiens aliquid de moribus audent Qui Curios simulant et Bacchanalia uiuunt
Yet the railing against hypocrisy and falsehood remains the same. For there is little I find, outside technology, that is truly new. If ancient poets were now reincarnated, they would be bloggers of a Libertarian hue.
I'm currently climbing a very steep learning curve regarding bowhunting. What is the best tool for the job? Has been the question sitting in my forebrain since a long in depth talk with one of the local experts who bade me look up the work of a Dr Ed Ashby.
Having read through the study documents twice, I'm drawn to the conclusion that a chisel tip two blade broadhead made of 58 Hardness Stainless Steel like this on a 680 grain arrow will fill the freezer nicely. There's a lot of information to digest, and still more practice to do before I'm ready for a real hunt. I'm utterly fascinated by the sheer weight of information compiled by Dr Ashby. I'm hanging on to the steep end of a learning curve, culturally speaking, trying to keep my grip. I can't see me being ready until some time late 2011. My little 45lb recurve won't be here until February as it is currently at the shippers awaiting the next container westbound.
For those interested, Dr Ashby's conclusions can be read via Alaskabowhunting.com or via the links below.
I have a great deal to learn. So, it would seem does a person apparently hunting with a crossbow in an urban area. Dozy wassuck. Semi rural areas fine; suburban most definitely not. Although it is possible that the shooter was hunting in the farmlands and woodland to the north of the area cited, so maybe I'm being a little harsh.
The thought does occur that hunting where the 'muddled moderns' have their semi sanitised playgrounds is nonetheless counter productive. It doesn't do to antagonise the squeamish. Especially those who don't or can't understand where those delicious meats come from on their local deli counter.
Posts
