I figure ...

... it’s time to put the old charger out to stud, and plant the lance in the mud and see if a tree will grow there so to speak.

Thus farewell, dear readers. I wish you all the best, and trust our paths will cross again.
 

May the spirit of William Thompson, slain 1649, for Englands Freedome, Souldiers Rights, rest easy in his grave. A la proxima ...

Liberalism versus Imperialism

There is no sentiment in a nation so dangerous, there is no sentiment so easy to stimulate, as the false excess of patriotism. There is probably no country in the world from China to Peru in which the sub-conscious voices of national egotism do not persistently whisper in men's ears the same intoxicating tale: ' "We are the pick and flower of nations, and (in one sense or another) the chosen people of God! Various foreigners may or may not have their good points, but only we are really whole and right and normal. Other nations boast and are aggressive; only we are modest and content with our barest due, though it is obvious that we are by nature specially qualified for ruling others, and no unprejudiced person can doubt that our present territories ought to be increased. That our yoke is a pure blessing to all who come under it is a plain fact, proved by the almost unanimous testimony of our own citizens, our historians, our missionaries, our soldiers, our travellers, and only denied out of spite by a few envious foreigners, whom no one believes!"'

Sentiments like these call them patriotism, Jingoism, Chauvinism, or what you will form a strong and persistent force, valuable when checked, dangerous when stimulated, and charged with all the elements of exasperation and explosion whenever there is most need for patience and for care.

There is also in most civilized countries another party, inspired, consciously or unconsciously, by the older school of English Liberals, who do not accept the extravagant pretensions of their own countrymen; who judge of national honour by more or less the same standards as they apply to private honour; who believe in international morality and in the co-operation of nations for mutual help ; who, if they are to dream at all, will dream not of Armageddons and Empires, but of progress and freedom, and the ultimate fraternity of mankind.

Francis Wrigley Hirst, from the Introduction to "Liberalism and the Empire", 1900

Burglars in jail don't burgle, shocked researchers find

New research shows, quelle surprise, that if you don't release burglars from jail, they don't burgle as much.

Will this impress the Gadarene Swine in charge of the criminal justice system (falsely so-called)? Highly unlikely. I don't think anyone's quite sure how truth works its way through the labyrinthine defence mechanisms of denial, sub-marxoid sociology and cynical apathy erected around those bureaucrats.

I look forward to additional studies on the effects on the crime rates of shooting burglars in the act of burglary. It may be just a hunch, but I'm sure this would also work as a reduction strategy. Perhaps the Home Office could return our fundamental, constitutionally-guaranteed right to keep and bear arms in order to facilitate some research?

Now, take a look at this run-of-the-mill news item from the United States:

The British equivalent of this story would feature an old man dead, or lying in a hospital bed, his face purple and swollen, his daughter tearfully describing how his war medals had been stolen.

Peter Schiff sheds light on ObamaCare Supreme Court ruling

Awesome Cover

Ah, the joys of the internet - all manner of great things to stumble upon. I don't know too much about this, I might update later.

BMJ - British Medical Jerk-offs

... which is an American word for wankers, which is what they are, but BMW is already taken. With the BMJ, it's not so much 'Vorsprung durch Technik', but rather 'Vorsprung durch wahnsinnliche, hysterische Kontrol-Freakerei', as evidenced on their astroturf blog:

"Imagine you are sitting down to enjoy a nice meal in your own dining room, or settling in to your bed to read a good book or perhaps taking a long soak in your bath and all you could smell and breathe is cigarette smoke. Now, if you were eating in a nice restaurant or staying in a hotel or visiting a spa, you could no doubt complain to management and the nonsmoking policy would be quickly and swiftly enforced. But when this smoke is in your own home and the source is your neighbor who lives directly below, what recourse do you have?"

It's hard to comment. To do so would involve machetéing a path through the virtually impenetrable hedge of paranoid, puritan dumbnitude. When did people who think like this manage to convince themselves that they're the normal ones?

Hague lies again on EU referendum

Via UKK41, I come across that snake William Hague, just back from hanging out with the Syria Coup Committee, lying through his teeth, desperately trying to string along his poor, deluded party on the subject of the EU.

I wonder what tories think of this man, who was once one of their favourite sons. Ain't you bored with the lies, tories? Ain't you tired with being treated like a bunch of fucking idiots?

My message to Hague is thus: