Carnage

I am not now, nor have I ever been a vegetarian. I'm weak I know. In my defence - I eat very little meat and ensure that it comes from Happy Cows etc. When this argument was advanced to a small child questioning the propriety of being a carnivore it brought forth the answer that surely you should eat the unhappy cows and leave the happy ones! But I digress, as always.

I must confess to feeling a bit unsure when, red in tooth and claw, some carnivore devours a poor defenceless beast, alive, whole even, in close up on a tv nature programme. So if you suffer from nervous dyspepsia and/or extreme paranoia do not click on this link 'A Killer Advances'
Gardeners among you may enjoy the tale that is told before the picture, another cracker from
Susan McCarthy's Blog.

Where Sheep May Safely Graze

A few days off; aren't they all?

Glastonbury at the solstice. I didn't go up the Tor for sunrise being, uncharacteristically, sound asleep. Those that did said it was like a drunken football match! I chose to go up the Tor solo, steady on chaps, and had a pleasant bimble in the sun, even being wished a happy solstice by a woman who ought to have known better. Later I had the privilege of sitting on the slopes of the Tor in a refurbished, mobile, shepherds hut. I shared a teabag, and looked out from the hut and saw this.


Sometimes, for the strangest of reasons, you can feel incredibly lucky and blessed.
As I may have said on a previous occasion:- Gracias a la vida

We then went off to see the shepherd castrate two of the little lambs that had been quite happily nuzzling their mum. Ouch!

Opportunity

In the darkest night, in the depths of despair, there is always a chance. Ingenuity, even in the less scrupulous orders, brooks no impediment.

An article in the FT, the Mafia blamed for $134bn fake Treasury bills.

My first thought was, in the current world of quantitative easing, how could they tell the difference?

Reading on, a quote counters my scurrilous conclusion...

“They are all fraudulent, it’s obvious. We don’t even have paper securities outstanding for that value,’’ said Mckayla Braden, senior adviser for public affairs at the Bureau of Public Debt at the US Treasury department.

Apparently your Treasury is up there in the interweb age and has been for some time.
Since the 1980s they have been issuing these kind of bonds by making electrons do fancy things that you probably don't want to think about!

Phwhat I hear you ask, were these, allegedly Japanese, men in their 50s intending to do with the funny money? Buy drugs, guns, small children and other animals and fish, stolen works of art, influence in high places, a country even; no of course not.

It seems this kind of thing has been going on for a while and in a similar case recently, a mere $1bn...

The fake bonds were to have been used as collateral to open credit lines with banks, Reuters news agency reported.

Very sound! Very sound!

Plus ca change!

An interesting article via Arts and Letters Daily.
When I first discovered this online mag many years ago I could not believe my luck. Someone was prepared to trawl through online stuff and put it up like a newspaper. Some of it did not interest me and some of it did. I only paid for the electrons and didn't have to worry about recycling them!
Having spent several years studying physics I'm still not sure if electrons ultimately, recycle, decay or change in all around I see. (I was certainly never very good at words to songs or hymns, definitely not Protestant ones!)
Moving on.
So Oliver Wendell Holmes Jnr. tendered a dissenting opinion in a decision of the Supreme Court
on April 17, 1905, in the case of Lochner v. New York.1

At a mere 617 words, the dissenting opinion is an interesting one.

The burden of the article is that the Supreme Court, under the corrosive influence of Holmes' dissent, has drifted into a form of paralysis and the view that the Constitution is an empty vessel with no moral content. It would allow tyranny as equitably as it would restrain tyrants.

Go on give it a whirl, stretch the old grey matter!

A very brief and clear history of the interweb!

T'internet is celebrating its 40th birthday, allegedly, and there is some good stuff out there.
Your man John Naughton has a very clear and interesting podcast.
You may claim that you don't understand all this stuff and it does not effect you.
In the same way there was some worthy German burgher laughing his socks off hysterically when he saw the first printing press. You can imagine his words when he had it explained that it was used to press sheets of paper which were then bound into books. It'll never catch on. What will all those monks do? I don't want my son reading books. I certainly don't want my daughter reading books, I don't want my daughter reading, full stop!

Mr Brown meets a voice from the past.

In the number ten bunker a large and slightly disheveled character sits with a half consumed bottle of malt whisky. Muttering quietly to himself he notices an image enter the room.

Shite!

It has long greasy hair, a cadaverous face and frame and a sallow complexion. It is dressed in a poor quality black suit.

Gordon! It's guid to meet you at last.

Jimmy! As I live and breathe, is it you?

Aye.

Gordon pours himself a large one and offers Jimmy a dram.

Och weel! I have nae had one this year, so yes.

God Jimmy! I did nae think it would be so fucking hard!

Gordon, you need to watch your language, and the drink nae doubt!

Bugger that. You've no idea what the bastards are capable of.

Remember, Gordon, the essentials - Socialism in oor time; vote Broon save the children. Och weel we can't have everything! Have ye got a fag?

No allowed Jimmy!

Well, well are we still allowed tea?

Yes, but have another, a large one.

Now Gordon; you know I only drink in moderation once a year or thereabouts to show willing. I could murder a tea though, lashings of tea!

I'll see if I can raise one of the little people to do a brew!

Don't fash yerself, I'll be off. I just thought you need to be reminded that eventually someone is going to stand up and say:-

Sit down man! You're a bloddy tradgedy!

Gordon slumped and poured the rest of the bottle into his glass!

To the wheelie bins!

I come from a tradition that had the slogan 'Vote Early, Vote Often' to contend with.
The Spanish go to the urns.
Some poor beggars don't have the 'luxury' of the vote.
If you don't vote you can't complain.

However, I did have a chuckle walking through the village yesterday where I saw this:-




Our blue bins are for the recycling of paper, cans and cardboard! It seems that the EU and politicians have lost a bit of ground recently.
And have I voted? Of course!

Let him who is without sin cast the first Stone!

OK so here is the deal.

I.F. (Izzy) Stone was a journo who made a modest living and a substantial reputation from self publishing his weekly. In those days, before blogs, the collapse of print journalism as we know it Jim, hell fire and damnation, and small snot green coloured animals that cling to your crocks in the summer, he made, in my view, a very reasonable job of speaking and writing truth to power.

Reportedly starting from a base of 5,200 charter subscribers he and his wife cranked out 20,000 postal issues by, 1963, and 70,000 in its final year, 1971.This was all done, Mom and Pop enterprise, from the 'kitchen table' on the back of a Government postal subsidy.

I am here waving my, well dodgy, fiver a month and proffering it to the first person who can provide me with journalism on a par with Izzy Stone or Jimmy Cameron and deliver it over the e-waves to my virtual front door.

Yes, of course, I could subscribe to the electronic Grauniad etc., etc.

But what I want is a small group of people knocking out stuff that would challenge me and cause the bastards serious trouble.

A group who would have these current thieving gobshites up against a wall and begging for the works of Corporal Murphy.

A dream of course!

I still have the fiver have written on it that:-

Our King is a true British Sailor!

Let me know if you find it and I might tell you the story!