The London Olympics are already achieving the number one aim of the politicians who brought them here, which is making our politicians feel very important indeed.
The media is quite frenetic in its efforts to make us all believe we should be terrifically proud of the fact we are hosting the Olympics, as though there were something unique in this achievement. If we can’t competently do something that Greece, Spain and China have done in recent years, that would be remarkable. Of course the Games will be on the whole well delivered, sufficient for the media and politicians to declare it an ecstatic success. Some of the sporting moments will be sublime, as ever.
But did it have to be in London? We won’t know the total cost of the Games for months, but it will cost the taxpayer at least £9 billion and I suspect a lot more. I also suspect the GDP figures will, in the event, show that the massive net fall in visitor numbers has hurt the already shrinking economy further.
But to take the most optimistic figure, holding the Olympics in London has cost every person in the country an average of £150 per head in extra taxes. That is £600 for a family of four. Actually it is in the end going to be well over £2,000, as of course the money has been borrowed on the never never, and taxpayers are going to be paying it off their whole lives, along with the sum ten times higher they are already paying direct into the pockets of the bankers through their taxes.
The very rich, of course, don’t pay much tax, so they are not worried.
But to take just the figure of £600 extra taxes for a family of four, the lowest possible amount, and not including the interest. Is having the Olympics here really worth paying out £600 for? If Tony Blair had approached the head of the family and said “We are going to have the Olympics in London, but it’s going to cost you £600, would the answer have been from most ordinary people: “Yes, great idea, this is that important to us”?
People are not disconcerted because they don’t see that they have to pay. There is no special Olympics tax, and they pay their taxes in a variety of ways, and individuals are not the sole source of taxation. But this is nonetheless real money taken from the people in pursuit of the hubris of politicians.
I love sport. I hate the corruption of the International Olympic Committee, Fifa and the rest; I hate the vicious corporatism and militarisation of our capital and absurd elitism of the transport lanes; the sport itself I love. But with the economy contracting, and the NHS being farmed out for profit, is it really worth £600 for a family – and many families are really struggling in a heartbreaking way – is it worth the money to have the Olympics here rather than in Paris?
Of course it isn’t. I think many of us will feel an extra pleasure watching the Opening ceremony because it is British. Patriotic pride will surge. It is not wrong to enjoy the spectacle tonight on TV. The corporate well connected and ruling classes will enjoy it in the stadium.
But after you have watched it on TV, ask yourself this question. How much more did you enjoy it than enjoy watching the Beijing ceremony, and was that margin of extra enjoyment something that everybody in the room would have paid out £150 for?
Because they just did.
Today is the 67th. anniversary of US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, not that any of the US servicemen were honouring those civilians that have died.
Watching the news last night one could not avoid seeing thousands of empty seats at the much hyped 100 meter final,and the song ‘ghost town’ by the Specials came to mind.
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Meanwhile in the south China sea US Chinese tensions are rising as the US, once again, is teasing China into angry responses regards to the South China sea. The US is operating close to 1000 military bases all over the world, a huge expense to society at home and a pressing concern for many countries which will have future consequences.
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Re. your link to the neo green article in the Guardian Clarke. Failing to follow US patenting of vital GM food stuffs, the public in the UK has rejected these for over a decade. Still, rich entities, such as Bill gates foundation and Lord Sainsbury are keeping research into these aboritions alive, as huge returns beckon from a share control of the market, are guaranteed for 25 years.
This article is designed to split the green movement ever further, pointing to the pro nuclear stance of some and the facts of live that have churned our soils for centuries. There is no such thing as nature any more, they say.
My reply is, poppycock, within 15 min. drive, in Shotesham, there lies an ancient mixed forest that has not been managed to pieces and any satellite picture of old villages will show some of the earliest strip farming still in its ancient form.
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I have been following our seasonal discordances here over the last three days and have to say that I find technicolour’s twists and turns here peculiar. Our stinking reptile is not a racialist, like all of us,. he’s vulnerable to have had his comments twisted.
To finish my epitaph, this is Cassette boy to cheer you up. Boris Johnson at his best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEDFMKjhLRw
Mary, thanks for the good news:
Louise Daphne Bagshawe-Mensch ex LoCicero leaving politics to live in New York with her sugar daddy hubby, Peter.
I wonder how long before he kicks her out?
> Jon is fascinatingly informed
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Easy there, Crab – isn’t sarcasm the cause of some of the conflict above? I simply stated a view I know exists, in a genuine effort to analyse some of the approaches to the immigration debate. It’s perhaps best I drop out now 🙂
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@Mary, yes the Boris flag-waving seems to have taken off a bit recently. They’re even doing it in the “liberal” papers, and they explain they know it is fueled by the positive vibe around the Olympics, and still they puff away. You’d think they don’t have anything better to write about! but they do – another shooting in the US, I see.
Anyone know why that mensch female has resigned? The scandal that is underlying it ought to be pretty stinky for the news to have come out during the busy “news” season.
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Also for those who thought a terrorist was a terrorist was a terrorist, well that is no longer the case, as from when the Syrian “Free Army” has been setting off bombs to blow up civilian targets in Syria. Today, a TV station has been blown up, and evidently that is OK by the anti-terrorist US, et al.
whatever happened to the comment I posted this morn with this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEDFMKjhLRw
I wasn’t going to comment today, but Thatcrab’s comment of 6 Aug, 2012 – 1:07 am is just so valuable that it demands a response, even though I don’t know what that response should be. But it reminds me of the ex-police officer who lived at the end of my lane, until he died last year. A Freemason of racist and sexist views, surely he “deserved” to be identified with “the enemy”? Yet he was a kind and brave man, who would help anyone in need, and not retreat if threatened. He even helped me, and I’m the village outcast here, and I was highly critical of his attitudes.
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It’s something to do with scale. Thatcrab related something from personal experience, something at once insignificant and vitally true. It’s the sort of story that is usually dismissed as “anecdotal” because, being at the scale of individuals, it could be just an anomaly, a tiny deviation from a statistical truth. But our lives are not made from statistics. They’re made from personal experiences.
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Above I commented that “humanity is fucked”, with a link to an article about “3D printers”, computer peripherals that, with a bit more development, can synthesize any object, including powerful weapons. A similar development is “kitchen biotechnology”. For an investment of £100 or less you can buy the equipment to synthesize any piece of DNA. Basically an enthusiast can develop custom designed viruses in their kitchen.
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Brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness, I was taught that Armageddon would be upon us in 1975. The vast majority of humans would be killed, and a tiny minority would be preserved into a paradise Earth. Various people have told me that this indoctrination is all in my past, that it cannot possibly be relevant to the person that I am now, but that is not my experience.
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This thread has shown our nearly unlimited capacity for conflict. I was furious with Technicolour, who now has good reason to be furious with me. There were further angry participants just on this thread, and this is just a little blog in a country that is not internally at war, on the global Internet that encompasses many places of actual armed conflict. Considering the huge implied potential for conflict in the context of potentially lethal technology I referred to above, can I really say that the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ doctrine was utterly wrong? Wasn’t their “prophecy” just a bit early, by about half a century?
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Maybe the real conflict is less “out there” than we are naturally inclined to believe. Maybe the real challenge is personal, for each of us to recognise the slightest tendency towards polarisation and escalation in our attitude, and to counter it, reason with it and reassure it that the underlying fear can be overcome. And if it can’t, well, none of us were immortal anyway. Maybe the real challenge is to let go of our perception of the urgency of pursuing our objectives, even the objective of defending our lives and those of our loved ones.
Nevermind, it was queued, now approved. It seems I can’t escape the moderator’s interface either.
“Pool Re, the state-backed British reinsurer that covers terror attack-related commercial property losses, has £4.5 billion ($7.327 billion) of assets to cover the Olympic Games and is not jacking up premiums for the event.”
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http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2012/04/30/245191.htm
Jon There was some other cynical comment over the weekend that the ‘coalition’ will disband a year before the next election (2015?) so that each of the Con Dems can ‘rebrand’. They need not bother. Both are toast as the expression goes, as well as NuNuLabour if Miliband Jnr continues to flirt with Bliar.
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Ms Harperson expressed regret on the last government’s decision to change the betting/gaming law. Some phenomenal sum has been spent this year alone on gaming machines within betting shops. Was there a connection between a lobby from the betting industry and donations to NuLabour. Back to Ms Jowell and the DCMS committee.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/aug/05/labour-mistake-gambling-law-harman?newsfeed=true
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Dispatches: Britain’s High Street Gamble will be broadcast on Channel 4 at 8pm on Monday 6 August
A recent report on the matter by the DCMS committee (Whittingdale/Mensch/Coffey et al)
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Culture, Media and Sport Committee – The Gambling Act 2005: A bet worth taking?
Evidence submitted by the Casino Operators’ Association
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http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmcumeds/421/421vw14.htm
Someone else who is not too keen on Mensch here.
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http://www.theawl.com/2012/08/the-unavoidable-louise-mensch
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Mensch *vehemently but quite mystifyingly declared on various news shows that, unlike her left-wing fellow committee members, she considered Murdoch senior to be a “great newspaper man” who was “obviously fit to run a major company.”
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There is a hilarious extract from one of her chick lit books on the link above.
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*link to SturdyBlog {http://sturdyblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/louise-mensch-a-foam-pie-in-the-face-of-criticism/}
Thanks Clarke and Jon, for your dedication to this blog, not unlike many thousands of young carers who look after their elderly neighbours/relatives without much thanks at all.
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I can relate to Clarke’s story. On my way to school, warned by the kids a class above, I passed the ‘witches house’, an elderly eccentric woman shunned by many for her peculiar interests in art and dance. She was observed dancing in her overgrown gardens and hence, she was the witch. When I helped her pick up the shopping she dropped, I was invited into Aladdin’s cave for a cup of chocolate. She was nothing but kind and interesting, slightly riled by the verbal abuse she got from the children passing her house everyday.
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One day I stood up for her and promptly received a hiding for my bother, the bullies did not like to be seen wrong.
Insofar I can agree that we all have it in us to be good or bad
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My indoctrination started with an enforced learning of the small catechism, it did not teach me to be kind to others, that was already instilled in me by my mother and grandparents, and from that day onwards I began to feel that religion is not in church, but in all of us, that a god, should he exist, is everywhere, but in church.
Islands revoke some peculiar feelings about ‘others’ who do not belong there, even when they always were part of society, even in medieval times. Britain’s talented athletes are making this abundantly clear to all who can see.
Well done wiggo, son of Belgian immigrants, you have made sideburns/cycling hip again. And thank you Federer, for being so knackered from the previous game with del’Portro, but where were Andy Murray’s elated smiles?
New-York times:
“Syrian Prime Minister Dismissed as Violence Continues”
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Reuters:
Sacked Syrian premier defects to Jordan: source,
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Bullshit Broadcasting Corporation:
“Syria PM Riad Hijab defects to Jordan”
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Guardian:
“Syria crisis: prime minister ‘defects’ – live updates”
2nd line:”State TV appoints caretaker PM after Hijab’s ‘sacking’ ”
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See the trends?
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Shamelessly pushing the official narrative and calling it reportage?
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Meanwhile back that ranch, the Syrian “free army” have kidnapped two bush loads of pilgrims from Iran, and are purportedly parading them as revolutionary guards, and the pack age on the telly shows the kidnapped Iranian pilgrims showing their driving licenses, and ID cards, the voice over: Syrian “free army” have captured 150 Iranian Revolutionary Guards sent on reconnaissances.
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Fact that only between 5 to 20 to 90 thousand depending on who is doing the reporting out of three four hundred thousand strong Syrian army, are now reliant on 150 unarmed and captured Iranian “revolutionary guards” for information, and evidently Russian orbital assets are no working these days too.
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Who writes these poxy scenarios, that would fail to compete with even a three year old with a bit of imagination, whom can do a better job in comparison?
Clark, agreed, we all know people like that. In one of Michael Moore’s books, he refers to his ex-Headmaster with whom he became diametrically politically opposed yet for whom he had soft spot, as he remembered the teacher being kind to him and his pals when he was a child. We must never forget the personal, even while we discuss the political. I think we may have discussed this before, somewhere, how, except perhaps with the most extremist individuals, in general a person’s political beliefs has little to do with their personal interactions/generosity. Maybe that’s a good thing. To give an extreme situation, think of those in Nazi Germany who helped save people. I regularly comes across people who have views with which I disagree in one way or another, but I don’t argue/fight with them all, otherwise I’d go mad. But this is a political blog and one would have to expect robust argumentation wrt the issues – so long as it doesn’t get too personal.
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“this thread is in danger of eating itself..” Crab.
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Anthropophagy! Tropicalia! Gil Gilberto! Os Mutantes!
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But whatever you do, for goodness sake, don’t eat crab! 🙂
Nevermind: my sincere thanks for that. Thanks also to Clark: I must be nicer to JW’s in future.
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I was in a sense testing the water. Could we have a reasoned debate about to what extent the Right’s immigration issue is a real issue? I was depressed to see that in several cases the answer was apparently, no. And the old ad hominem abuse was beginning to emerge: it’s always hard not to respond in kind.
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Meanwhile, the EDP, BNP and other xenophobic groupings continue to attract support from people who see enough evidence of a problem in their own lives to accept an account which is the converse (I remind you radical socialists) of what the Gummint wants them to believe.
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And do we see nationalism as a counter to corporate globalism? Some of us see it as even worse, and are content to let Morgan Stanley rule the world. Because there doesn’t seem to be a Third Way here.
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Our governors now govern us on behalf of The Sacred Markets (Monbiot makes this point better than I do), not in our national interest. Partly this is because the nation they govern is no more than a loose association of tribes (whether grouped by colour, religion, origin or Eton’s ritual indoctrination), and this is encouraged by the PC brigade in the name of diversity. How do you determine the national interest when there is no national identity? It’s much less challenging to line your own, and your tribe’s pockets. Which brings me back to the shared (and institutionally tribal) upbringing of our current leaders…
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Another post bit the dust…have I been banned?
Thanks for your insight, Nevermind
Komodo,
Don’t be so thin skinned, acting a like a big girls blouse, unbecoming of a lizard that is!!!!!!!!
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No you have not, you old goat biting so and so, good to see you back.
Suhayl But whatever you do, for goodness sake, don’t eat crab!
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Even when it’s ‘dressed’?
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Clark/Jon Two of mine above with Guardian links are awaiting your kind attention. Don’t know how you both do it here. I join in the others’ thanks. It happens when the thread gets long and when we haven’t heard from Craig so it’s all his fault!
Why, thanks, Passerby. It was getting a bit heated, so took a break before I poisoned the atmosphere completely. Glad to see some of Club Murray got what I was on about – and spotted that at least a portion of my tongue (the starboard half) was in my cheek. I keep forgetting about people whose lips move when they read, and take everything literally, too.
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Anyway, Mensch.
Could here sudden departure have anything to do with one of her donors, David (Carphone) Ross? He gave her £4000 before the last election, and his wife Linda chipped in with £2000. Mensch isn’t his only chum, obviously. Here’s another:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8799751/Rebekah-Brooks-has-Carphone-Warehouse-tycoon-David-Ross-in-her-sights.html
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Recall also Mensch’s rather opaque performances at the CMS enquiry. Yes, she was blunt with Rupert…but that wasn’t the whole story at all:
{http://politicalscrapbook.net/2012/05/tom-watson-louise-mensch-murdoch-twitter-row/}
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So I wonder if something nasty about Mensch will emerge when Brooks is tried?
Wendi Deng has a competitor in the Knock ‘Em Flat competition.
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Dutch judo star ‘hit bottle-thrower’ in Olympic 100m final
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19149278#
What a creepy letter of resignation.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9455396/Louise-Mensch-resigns-exchange-of-letters-with-David-Cameron.html
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LOL as Smoothface would say.
You might not agree with everything in this video but it certainly helps to ‘shed light’ on a great deal of subjects: one being…cue dramatic horn attack…immigration .In Britain,Thatcher insisted on attracting a mass Indian influx – one reason given was that they procreated in greater numbers than the increasingly childless native Britons and thus would help to pay the increasing debt that Britain has created for itself. Labour added social engineering to the pot. In the Americas the eventual taking down of the borders between Canada and the US and Mexico was signed into law in 2005. They decided it wouldn’t be a big bang like the EU. It will be a five stage agenda.
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Most people see an immigrant or asylum seeker as a person first-politicians at the highest levels do not.It makes little difference to these governments whether mass immigration comes from war torn countries or not-if they can use them for their own gain they will.
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‘This was written about in the 1840s by karl marx in Das Kapital. He described three trading blocs under a supreme world government. National governments would cease to exist’
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwZB_vOdKdY&feature=player_embedded
@Mary: Cringe.
I was trying to find out if Mensch will get that large sum of dole that retiring or not re-elected MPs receive. Something like £60k from memory.
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I came across this. Some have phenomenal spending on stationery and postage. I write to mine by e-mail and back come the anodyne words printed on posh watermarked cream stationery inside a franked embossed matching HoC envelope. Quite ridiculous and very wasteful. I think it is done this way so that their tripe is more difficult to copy and forward.
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http://www.parliament.uk/documents/facilities/Accommodation%20and%20Logistics/Members%20Stationery%20Spend%202011-12.pdf
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Mary,Take a look at the photos of Edith Bosch, a tall and pretty Dutch girl who packs a punch judging by her stature, I am glad that butthole thrower has been sorted out by Edith, and her example of citizenship ought to give her medal a boost I say.
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Though very surprised she was not picked up for assault, and battery with intent to do damage, and deported at once! You know our cops, a convict (however silly the crime) in hand better than a hundred criminals at large.
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Mensch, can of worms, etc.. cannot wait to find out the truth, that slimy bint has the face for anything, so it must be pretty bad whatever it is!
I greatly admire War on Want. This is their action on Adidas’s use of sweatshops. Nike next on their list please.
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http://www.waronwant.org/news/press-releases/17617-olympic-projection-spotlights-adidas-factories-exploitation
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Shame on Herr Landau and his French, German and Russian colleagues on the Adidas board. Note Laudau’s other directorships – HSBC, Allianz and Sanofi-Aventis. Have these directors ever visited the locations of production of the Adidas goods?
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{http://www.adidas-group.com/en/ourgroup/supervisory_board/default.aspx}
A little intense work in Pshop or Gimp and you can make Mensch look very much like this:
http://uk.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/2010724/425.avatar.lr.082410.jpg
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But not as shiny.
Komodo, are you referring to the bubble that thing is holding in its hands? It contains less hot-air than the slimy one we all have come to endure.
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Have you read the letter Mary linked? The constant “aren’t I wonderful and fantastic” theme is telling of: I (her) really don’t want to go, but my garden is really overgrown and I really need to go on this gardening leave! (I am awaiting the stink of the shit that is about to hit fan).
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BTW does anyone else have this pet hatred of Avatars as I have? Making a hybrid human donkey mutant is just taking the piss and kicking sand into our faces by Hollywood so far as I am concerned.
Yes to all, Passerby. Her letter was obviously written for public consumption: dragging in Labour’s alleged record on the economy was a dead giveaway. Cameron’s reply was what I would expect from someone to whom this came as no surprise, too.
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Avatar got the kids and escapists in, and made lotsamoolah, so it did what it was designed to do. I cannot disparage good design…
Suhayl
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Certainly we should expect an improvement in a host’s performance. That’s what the research shows.
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It doesn’t quite explain Murray’s thrashing of Federer.
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Jon
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You’re correct about the no platform stuff. In large part that’s what destroyed the Left in the 80s, at least in its ideological component.
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Now we have no platform as mainstream. We’re up to our ears in identity politics, so called political correctness everywhere and have laws to stop us offending anyone.
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Are we better off? Of course not. We’re all vastly worse off.
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The fasscist state that is emerging is assisted by this lack of free speech. That’s the whole point.
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Wars are sold as liberal intervention just as fear of giving offence is sold as being respectful.
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All it does though is disarm criticism of the state itself and its various agents.