One good thing about the Aussies is that they are not deferential.
http://bit.ly/nEH6P2
Thanks jonangus for flagging this up to me in comments. I should say that I have no objection to Osborne taking cocaine, but I do object to his subsequent hypocrisy in defending its criminalisation. Nor do I care about his masochistic practices in subsequent sexual activity with a prostitute, though I do object to his hypocrisy in defending the continuing legal persecution of prostitutes.
But what is of overwhelming public interest is how this all links in to the insertion of the criminal Coulson into the heart of government.
It would be wonderful to hear this lady giving evidence in public before Judge Leveson’s phone hacking inquiry. I fear that is not going to happen.
William Sinclair eh? Perhaps we have finally solved the mystery of what goes on in the hidden vaults under Rosslyn Chapel!
Those who do not believe in capital punishment should make a stand. If not a cocktail of drugs (tenuous topic link) will bring to the end the life of Troy Davis.
.
http://action.amnesty.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1194&ea.campaign.id=11962&utm_source=social&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=deathpenalty&utm_content=troy_sharefb
.
When George W. Bush, was governor of Texas 152 people were executed (innocent or guilty). That’s nearly as many as Timothy McVeigh murdered. But of course Bush has killed a lot more since then. They die daily from his past actions and legacy. This is the opportunity to save one.
Suhayl, not you, either; it was Azra. There are dealers, and there are pushers, and there are shades in between. The morality, or lack of it, is not in the substance, but in the behaviour. I believe that drugs should be legalised, so I can’t remain silent when someone says that all dealers should be hung.
.
Should we hang the pub landlords and off-licence traders? Most won’t sell to minors; some will. Some will sell to an alcoholic or someone who is drunk; others will say no.
….
Yes. Risk, coke, selfishness, feelings of invincibility, ego, the desire to make big winnings fast. There’s definitely a strong correlation, but I think it’s a case of each accentuating the others, a type of personality drawn towards certain behaviours, peer groups who encourage each other – and get rewarded for it too, in too many cases.
Suhayl – you like Davy Graham? I’ve been trying to play “Angi” for a couple of years now, and still am nowhere near satisfied. It’s a lot harder than it sounds! Maybe I should try it on a lute, instead of a classic- acoustic hybrid guitar?
.
A friend who happened to work in NY, SF and London at the same time as me, spoke of his experience with the high finance boys. He’d been there in the early 90’s, and switched careers in order to have nothing to do with them ever again. Sexist, racist, drug-fueled bigots, they genuinely wanted to see each other die so they could clamber onto their corpse. Pushing the figurative grandma under the bus was kiddies stuff – they’d enthusiastically sink their best friend and brag about it, just to demonstrate how seriously they take any potential gain.
.
These are the sort of people who rise to CEO positions – high functioning sociopaths, who also happen to be very good at economics and have managed to stay out of jail despite other deviant behaviour.
.
Coke was a big part of the ethos – massive egos, devil-take-the-hindmost, stay up all night boozing/ coking, and you’re a wuss if you show weakness the next day. Just the sort of attitude we want running the finances of this country.
A barb in the headline.
.
Osborne feels the pain of dominatrix’s claims
Chancellor accused of repaying favour by backing Coulson for No 10 job
.
By Cahal Milmo, Chief Reporter
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
.
Former dominatrix Natalie Rowe, left, and, right, George Osborne
.
George Osborne faced more questions yesterday about his role in the decision to bring the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson into the heart of the Conservative Party. It followed new claims about the newspaper’s treatment of a story linking the Chancellor to a former dominatrix and allegations of drug-taking.
.
/….http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/osborne-feels-the-pain-of-dominatrixs-claims-2353648.html
Osborne’s seat (his parliamentary one that is!) is threatened in the proposed boundary changes.
.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13665221
Lucy D
It is the illegality of drugs that funds most criminal activity in this country. If they were legalised and regulated, they would still have a relationship with crime as tobacco does, but it is altoghether lower level. Your association of gangsters with cocaine is a confusion of the cause and effect of illegality.
Ummm, the solution is too attack bankers incomes and banking practices, not to ban cocaine. Do you also want to ban Porsches?
As usual, Frank Zappa sounded the alarm first:
.
Chop a line now. . .
.
Cocaine decisions . . .
You are a person with a snow-job
You got a fancy gotta go job
Where the cocaine decision that you make today
Will mean that millions somewhere else
Will do it your way
.
Cocaine decisions . . .
You are a person who is high class
You are a person not in my class
.
http://www.lyricsdomain.com/6/frank_zappa/cocaine_decisions.html
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDEwJ2xlSXk
@ Suhayl Saadi – I think your comment “The City of London and Wall St are on coke – this accounts, in part, for the extremely unrealistic financial speculation that went on for years” may be very valid. Years ago I was involved with a group of executives some of whom were clearly heavy duty cocaine addicts. On occasion I would even see them snorting it in the car park when I drove in the morning. You are quite right when you say “People on coke think they’re God’s gift.” As that’s exactly how it was. But I noticed two other characteristics as well: (1) they clubbed together often excluding or attacking others of more ability (2) they couldn’t handle detail and had a very low patience span so often complexity in the job was beyond them. Indeed they were so cliquish that my wife and I used to refer to them collectively as the “cocaine brigade”. I am not a Doctor, like yourself, but I can well see how you could attribute some of the “extremely unrealistic financial speculation” to the high levels of cocaine addiction that Wall St. / City are famous for. Clarke’s poem quote sums it up.
Roderick Russell, I mustn’t let you give me the credit. The “poem” is actually lyrics from a song by Frank Zappa, written in 1983. These idiots have been permitted and financially encouraged in their wrecking for decades.
‘Worse revelations are yet to come.’ — Rebekah Brooks.
.
Longer version of the tabloid headline they still refuse the UK public :
.
HOW MURDOCH & COULSON COOLED COKE CRISIS FOR CAMERON & WHY:
.
http://bit.ly/o63qLI
Such is long-established unadmitted weakness for nose-powdering in UK media circles, plain hack fear for their own careers is another factor still keeping the Osborne/Coulson scandal largely under wraps. As this bizarre nostril-tingling episode (plucked from the Sky, as it happens) serves amply to demonstrate:
.
http://bit.ly/rrocHW
Yep. Thanks, all. Interesting vignettes.
.
Glenn, Davy Graham – yeah, great musician: ‘Blue Raga’. Good luck with ‘Angi’!
.
Aptly, in his excellent memoir, ‘White Bicycles’, music producer Joe Boyd has something to say re. the largely deleterious (in terms fo the music) dominance of cocaine (as opposed to, say, marijuana, amphetamines, LSD, heroin, etc.) in the sphere of popular music from around the early 1970s onwards. As with the bankers, there were other factors, of course, quasi-24-tracking being one of them, but it’s an interesting thematic area, well worth exploring.
.
In essence then, I think that cocaine (and us, for we are their unending supply of coke) ought to be protected from the bankers (rather than the other way around)! Ha!
Play it Clarke:
also features Bunga Bunga at the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_WgCGOWae4&feature=related