Carina Saunders

Here.

She was murdered in the States, but it's another Mary-Anne Leneghan-style killing - they killed her in front of another girl as a demonstration of the penalties for disobedience.

Reality vs Blank Slate Theory - Lego Edition

"The debut of Lego Friends, featuring a more prominent use of pink than your typical Lego fan would be used to, drew criticism that it would reinforce gender stereotypes. As well as the usual trucks, policemen and rugged houses, the line now includes Stephanie's cool convertible in distinctive pink and purple, and Mia's Puppy House, accessorised with flowers and full pet grooming kit."

And .... ??


The world-famous plastic brick maker said net profit rose 35% to 2bn kroner (£213m) in the first six months of 2012, from 1.48bn kroner for the same period last year. Sales rose 24% to Kr9.1bn, spurred by the success of the Lego Friends line, which was launched in January in an attempt to expand the company's appeal beyond boys. It has been a runaway hit, selling twice as many sets as expected.

"It has been amazing to experience the enthusiastic welcome that consumers have given the new range," said the Lego chief executive, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp. "Sales have been quite astonishing."

What's amusing is that Blank Slaters tend to be militant atheistic types, priding themselves on following reason and science - unless the science tells them things they don't want to hear. In a sense, a Christian should be in awe of such a faith as theirs, utterly unbuttressed by reality. It's a real triumph of the will.

Shulamith Firestone 1945-2012

Radical feminist and author of "The Dialectic of Sex" Shulamith Firestone has died aged 67.

"Firestone wanted to eliminate the following things: sex roles, procreative sex, gender, childhood, monogamy, mothering, the family unit, capitalism, the government, and especially the physiological phenomena of pregnancy and childbirth. She wanted to mechanize reproduction -- gestating fetuses in artificial wombs -- and raise the offspring communally, treating them no differently from adults at the earliest possible age."

In my teens I was a big fan. I thought I couldn't love, wasn't happy about it, and she said "men can't love". At 17 you are the world, so I swallowed her ideas whole. After all, a sample of one proved her right.

In hindsight (although I still have the book, long time no read - it's somewhere in the loft with Marx's complete works), her ideas were mostly idiotic - although she was right about the massive link between "the female condition" and childrearing - which isn't exactly an original insight. Her solution was to abolish the link entirely - she was a follower of Mustapha Mond :

Mustapha Mond leaned forward, shook a finger at them. "Just try to realize it," he said, and his voice sent a strange thrill quivering along their diaphragms. "Try to realize what it was like to have a viviparous mother."
That smutty word again. But none of them dreamed, this time, of smiling.
"Try to imagine what 'living with one's family' meant."
They tried; but obviously without the smallest success.
"And do you know what a 'home' was?"
They shook their heads.

The Atlantic obituarist notes the contrast between the success of the late Helen Gurley Brown and the obscurity of Ms Firestone, who died alone and remained alone for the next week until a neighbour alerted the landlord (how's that childlessness thing working out for you?).
  
The Laban take is that, while the HGB brand of Bridget Jones feminism is in many ways as toxic as Ms Firestone's, it at least is grounded in biological and evolutionary reality.

Remember this post ?

If I understand these evolutionary biologist chappies aright, before the Great Cultural (and contraceptive) Revolution women really really wanted two things (from an evolutionary biology perspective ... remember we've only just come out of the trees ...)

a) a chap with top genes to father her children - a real alpha male to produce alpha babies

b) a chap who'd provide for said children and stick around to help raise them, or at a minimum to facilitate her raising them

and from the same evolutionary biology perspective men wanted

a) only one thing

the point of both approaches being to maximise the survival of your genes

Now you might have noticed a potential issue with the female strategy - that Mr Alpha and Mr Provider may not necessarily be the same chap.

While your mileage may vary, it's safe to say that most women don't want to be celibate or to raise children in glass bottles. On the other hand, they do want to have the good things in life, including the attentions (however defined) of high-status (however defined - may be different on the estate to in the boardroom) males. Helen Gurley Brown's Cosmopolitan was one of the first  "how-to" guides for hypergamy - aka mating upwards. HGB got famous (and rich) by giving women what they really want, because it addressed real women's desires.

Firestone's feminism was not grounded in most people's reality. Which is why she was, in Andrea Dworkin's view : "poor and crazy. She rents a room in a house and fills it with junk, then gets kicked out and moves into another room and fills that with junk."

Whatever the intentions of its original visionaries, feminism in practice has had the effect of reducing the costs of hypergamy to a woman, and transferring those costs to men in particular/society in general*. As the feminists would say, "it is no coincidence".



UPDATE - comment on the Villager :

"I was the neighbor who alerted the landlord; there were no neighbors-- plural -- who did so, There was no strong odor which alerted me; only a rent check that hadn't left the crack in the door since August 1. Despite the lack of odor in the hallway, she had been dead for well longer than a week . I saw the body and she didn't die peacefully in her bed. (I mention this only because the article is graphic, and false). No one, no friend, had been around - I don't know this Lopez woman, nor did I ever meet any of her family. I did talk with her network of feminist friends, two of whom came to the building (I called one) on Tuesday night and paid their respects as the body was taken away. They were, are, good women. Bob Perl I won't comment on. Shulamith was a tormented woman living with severe mental illness, and I lived with her screams and pain for years."







(*It's exemplified on a micro scale by a friend of mine, whose wife left him and got the house and child custody. He now lives in a one-bedroomed flat - but he still gets to have the kids - whenever she's jetting off for a weekend in St Petersburg or Prague with her new boyfriend. I know another guy, a great father to his kids - at 47 he's in a council flat in the worst part of town while new man is in his old house, bed, and ex-wife - and he's just lost his job when it was outsourced. Great.) 

Friday Night Music - Do You Love Me ?

A towering work by an unknown genius - this orchestral take on the Contours' early 60s hit. No idea who it's by, but I'm pretty sure it's not this Deep Feeling.

Allez !

As the rioting season commences across the channel, what better time to visit La Belle France?

So we're off to the land of T.T. Omeyer. Blogging will be light unless a Fon hotspot pops up.

Nice Circus - Shame About The Bread

"The heroes of declining nations are always the same—the athlete, the singer or the actor" - Glubb Pasha.

When I saw the Olympic Park Orbit on the telly I thought it was an ugly and depressing piece of work which indeed encapsulated modern Britain - foreign-owned, non-functional, but lauded by our artistic elite as the best thing since sliced cow.

But it's not until you walk into the Olympic Park and see it close to, towering above the stadium, that you can appreciate just how very ugly and non-functional it actually is. It's hideous.

A pity, as with a bit of tweaking it could have made by far the greatest helter-skelter in the world, a ride on which would be well worth fifteen quid.

At night it's illuminated in rising and falling intensities of red, which gives the impression of a giant tungsten lamp filament being heated by an electrical current. Again, had they actually chosen to do that, passing thousands of amps through different parts of the structure until sections glowed red-hot, now here, now there, it would still have been useless, but you'd have had to admire the technology that kept it upright (a large steel structure heated to red heat would usually IMHO collapse as the metal loses strength), and be in awe at the power required.

My jaundiced views on the Olympics have not changed - an outrageous waste of money (£27 million for the opening ceremony alone* was in real terms nearly twice the entire cost of the 1948 Olympics)and a Labour vanity project. But at least they wasted the money in style.The atmosphere was great and the thousands of soldiers and police all over the place meant that you didn't have to worry taking the kids home on the tube at 11.30 pm.

Now it's "tea-break over, back on your heads" - to a world of static wages and sticky inflation.  

Today’s Tories/Lib Dems are basically following Blair/Brown/Darling’s Labour strategy:

slightly reduced state spending (Tories slightly more than Labour, but we’re talking maybe one or two percent here)

money printing (aka "monetisation"),  which via inflation lowers living standards at a time of static wages

lowest-ever interest rates to reduce the real value of savings

mass immigration to keep wages flat - Labour wanted immigration to rub the Right's noses in diversity, Tories like the way it keeps wages down, the rich individuals who fund both parties like the way it keeps wages down

banks to be bailed out by indebting the taxpayer for generations to come.

reduced state spending AND reduced terms and conditions via outsourcing/privatisation deals involving their friends and party donors

But the poor proles need to be constantly reminded that one party is good and one evil, although the actual policies are near-identical. It would never do for people to realise that there’s not a fag-paper’s breadth between them, which is why you'll still read about "Tory scum" and "the most right-wing government in our history" in the Guardian.

What we’re seeing is reproletarianisation.

Before WW2, most working people could look forward to a lifetime spent in rented accommodation and a small pension until death within a few years of retirement (I think in 1945 male average death age was 68, so 3 years of retirement).

After WW2, many of the post-war boomers will have bought their own homes, and the middle-classes will have retired at 60 on two thirds of final salary, index-linked.

But pretty soon their children will leave uni with maybe £60,000 plus of debts (9K fees, 11K board and subsistence for 3 years), live in rented accommodation all their lives and if employed retire at 70-plus on a small pension.

They’ll have returned to the life pattern of their grandparents and great-grandparents. It was a nice circus while it lasted - pity about the bread.
 




* a ceremony whose presentation, if not whose message, would have won the approval of the late Leni Riefenstahl.

HMRC's Most Wanted

I posted a few years ago (and more on the same theme here) :

We're importing people from a fair few countries where corruption is endemic without any attempt at integration. We're simultaneously beating ourselves up that, say, 39% of the population of Trumpton are from minority x, yet only 2% of the local magistrates are. I don't know what magic the soil of the UK possesses, but our rulers are apparently convinced that the moment you set foot on it all the 'bad' practices of the old country fall off you, leaving only the good bits - you know, the ones that enrich us.

Absent such magical soil, I'd expect that as more magistrates/tax officials/police whatever are appointed from (unintegrated) minority x, so levels of corruption/violence/whatever will depart from those we've experienced in the last 150 years, and move closer to those in country x.

The Telegraph have published HMRC's Most Wanted - the chaps - and they are nearly all chaps - with the biggest unpaid tax bills who've not gone to jail (though note the absence of Vodafone, Google etc) :

Hussain Asad Chohan, 44, believed to be in Dubai. He was convicted at Birmingham Crown Court in his absence and sentenced to 11 years for his part in fraud worth around £200 million, which included importing 2.25 tonnes of tobacco worth £750,000 in duty. Chohan has also been served with a £33 million confiscation order.

Nasser Ahmed, 40, believed to be in Pakistan or Dubai, was convicted at Bristol Crown Court in 2005 for his role in VAT fraud worth around £156 million. He fled before verdicts were given, and was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison in his absence.

Zafar Baidar Chisthi, 33, thought to be in Pakistan, was found guilty at Kingston Crown Court for his part in VAT fraud worth around £150 million. He was sentenced to 11 years for conspiracy to defraud the public purse and one year for perverting the course of justice.

Darsim Abdullah, 42, believed to be in Iraq, was convicted at Guildford Crown Court for being part of a money laundering gang that processed £1 million to £4 million per month. Eleven other members of the gang were convicted or pleaded guilty, but he ran away before sentencing.

Leigang Liang, 38, believed to be in the UK, was convicted at Lewes Crown Court for illegally importing tobacco from China. He was sentenced in his absence to seven years. The estimated cost to the taxpayer of the scam was £2.6 million.

Olutayo Owolabi, 40, believed to be in the UK, was convicted in January 2010 for 27 charges linked to tax credits and money laundering, and sentenced in his absence to nine months in jail. The estimated cost to the taxpayer was £1 million.

Wayne Joseph Hardy, 49, now believed to be in South Africa, was convicted at Ipswich Crown Court for manufacturing tobacco products and not paying duty. He was given three-year sentence in October 2011. The estimated cost to the taxpayer was £1.9 million.

Adam Umerji - aka Shafiq Patel, 34, thought to be in Dubai, was jailed at Liverpool Crown Court for 12 years for VAT fraud and money laundering. The cost to the taxpayer was around £64 million.

Gordon Arthur, 60, believed to be in the United States, suspected of illegally importing cigarettes and alcohol and failing to pay around £15 million in duty. He fled in 2000 and a warrant was issued for his arrest at Maidstone Crown Court in 2002.

Emma Elizabeth Tazey, 38, also believed to be in the United States, is wanted in connection with the same allegations.

John Nugent, 53, thought to be in the United States, was accused of putting in fraudulent claims for duty and VAT worth more than £22 million. A warrant for his arrest was issued at Manchester Crown Court.

Malcolm McGregor McGowan, 60, believed to be in Spain, was found guilty at Sheffield Crown Court in December 2011 of illegally importing cigarettes worth around £16 million into the UK, and was sentenced to four years.

Timur Mehmet, 39, believed to be in Cyprus, is wanted over a £25 million VAT fraud. He was found guilty in absence and sentenced to eight years at Northampton Crown Court.

Vladimir Jeriomin, 34, thought to be in Russia or Lithuania, was part of a gang that made false claims for tax repayments. The estimated cost to the taxpayer was £4.8 million. A warrant was issued for his arrest at Liverpool Crown Court.

Cesare Selvini, 52, thought to be in Switzerland, is wanted for smuggling platinum bars worth around £600,000. A warrant was issued for his arrest at Dover Magistrates' Court in 2005.

Dimitri Gaskov, 27, thought to be in Estonia, allegedly smuggled three million cigarettes into the UK using desktop computers. He fled before trial and an arrest warrant was issued at Ipswich Crown Court.

Mohamed Sami Kaak, 45, thought to be in Tunisia, is wanted for smuggling millions of cigarettes into the UK between March 2005 and September 2006 and evading around £822,000 in duty. He was convicted in his absence at Isleworth Crown Court and jailed for four years.

Rory Martin McGann, 43, believed to be in Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland, is wanted for alleged VAT fraud worth more than £902,000. He was arrested in November 2008 but later fled.

Yehuda Cohen, 35, thought to be in Israel, is wanted over VAT fraud worth around £800,000. He was arrested at Heathrow Airport in March 2011 but later fled while on bail.

Sahil Jain, 30, believed to be in the UK, was arrested over alleged VAT fraud worth around £328,000 but failed to appear at the Old Bailey and a warrant was issued for his arrest on June 8. 

It takes an awful lot of minimum-wage cleaners and retail staff to compensate for these guys - in fact, given that a minimum wage earner in London or with a family will be taking more in housing and other benefits than they're paying in tax, no number will compensate. It'll take an awful lot of deputy managers and management accountants, put it that way.

Helen Gurley Brown 1922-2012

It was at the helm of Cosmopolitan, which she transformed from being an often straitlaced publication aimed at suburban housewives into one that built a global readership based on Brown and her colleagues' idealised image of the sexually liberated, career-focused "Cosmo girl".

New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg called her "a pioneer who reshaped not only the entire media industry but the the nation's culture. She was a role model for the millions of women whose private thoughts, wonders and dreams she addressed so brilliantly in print."

Helen Gurley Brown died childless.



UPDATE - Amazingly bitchy/revelatory obit in the Telegraph :

"Helen Gurley Brown never wanted children on the ground that they would be "horrible little competitors" for the admiration of others. "

""My message is, there is no let-up, ever." Her editors were given strict injunctions that there should be "no glums, no dour feminist anger and no motherhood". "

For Helen Gurley Brown, it was not possible to be too thin: "Skinny is sacred; anybody plunking down a plate of fried zucchini would be trying to poison me." Growing old she regarded as "the most disgusting thing in the world" - something it was every woman's duty to fight, almost literally to the death.

After losing her virginity aged 20, she remained sexually active, but resolved never to get hitched up with "a gas station attendant or somebody who boxed the groceries because he was sexy", setting her sights on higher things.

She worked a 12-hour day and boasted that she had never taken a day off "except for cosmetic surgery".

Friday Night Music - Scottish Honour Killing I

One of the few things I agree with Andy Newman about is his defence of the average Ibrahim in the mosque, when faced with liberal accusations that Muslim culture is homophobic and sexist to a wholly unprecedented and outrageous extent.

After all, Ibrahim's views on homosexuals ('punish them'), adulterers ('punish them'), a woman's place (in the home raising kids), abortion (murder) and 'loose' women from another culture (use them) would have struck a chord with most Brits, and pretty much all male Brits, in "Elder Days Before the Fall" - the Fall being the 60's Cultural Revolution.

Where I differ with Andy is that, like Dave Osler, he sees Muslim immigrants as instruments to fulfil his political ends rather than rational actors with ideas and ends of their own  - the ostensible end in Andy's case being the strengthening of the British working class to the point where the downfall of capitalism is a realistic prospect. How's that project going, Andy? Are the UK working class stronger or weaker than in pre-diverse days?  And how are the capitalists doing relative to the workers - better or worse? Really? How odd. You'd have thought all that diversity would have strengthened the movement no end, wouldn't you? It must just be a coincidence that Andy and the Institute of Directors are of one mind when it comes to the desirability of mass immigration.  

I digress. And I mustn't push the parallel between Muslim immigrants and antediluvian Brits too far. Slaughtering one's daughter for bringing dishonour on the family was never a part of that lost Brit culture. Even the modern leftie slanders against the family whose daughter "got into trouble" turn out to have been greatly exaggerated.

Save perhaps in the one part of the UK, a couple of hundred years back, where the mores of the Punjab (and even more the NW Frontier) would have been quite understood - the Highlands of Scotland before the Forty-Five. As Thomas Macaulay put it :

"He would have found that life was governed by a code of morality and honour widely different from that which is established in peaceful and prosperous societies. He would have learned that a stab in the back, or a shot from behind a fragment of rock, were approved modes of taking satisfaction for insults. He would have heard men relate boastfully how they or their fathers had wreaked on hereditary enemies in a neighbouring valley such vengeance as would have made old soldiers of the Thirty Years' War shudder. He would have found that robbery was held to be a calling, not merely innocent, but honourable. He would have seen, wherever he turned ... that disposition to throw on the weaker sex the heaviest part of manual labour, which are characteristic of savages. He would have been struck by the spectacle of athletic men basking in the sun, angling for salmon, or taking aim at grouse, while their aged mothers, their pregnant wives, their tender daughters, were reaping the scanty harvest of oats.

And yet ... it was true that the Highlander had few scruples about shedding the blood of an enemy: but it was not less true that he had high notions of the duty of observing faith to allies and hospitality to guests."

It may just be a coincidence, but the only traditional British song I know where a daughter is killed for damaging the family honour is from Aberdeenshire. It's also beautifully sung here by the late Ray Fisher :


"Oh, father, mother, sisters all,
Why sae cruel to your Annie?
My heart was broken first by love,
Now my brither's broke my body"

Friday Night Music - The Testimony of Patience Kershaw

 Charming though the Unthanks version is, I always feel that Gary and Vera Aspey get closer to the heart of this moving Frank Higgins song. From their 1974 LP Seeing Double, which I believe is no longer available - correct me if I'm wrong.



As the reproletarianisation of Britain continues, and the life-pattern of our children starts to move towards that of their great-grandparents (a low wage, rent all your life, a few years of retirement on a small pension before death - with the added tweak that they'll be surrounded by strangers who owe them no loyalty or solidarity), they'll be learning the lessons all over again - the lessons their great grandparents knew but their parents forgot.  The song was inspired by 17 year old Patience Kershaw's testimony to Lord Ashley's Mines Commission of 1842. The Mines Act of 1842 that resulted prohibited the employment in the mines of all women and of boys under thirteen.         It's good of you to ask me, Sir, to tell you how I spend the day  It's in a coal black tunnel, Sir, I hurry corves to earn my pay.  The corves are full of coal, kind Sir, I push them with my hands and head.  It isn't lady-like, but Sir, you've got to earn your daily bread.   I push them with my hands and head, and so my hair gets worn away.  You see this baldy patch I've got, it shames me like I just can't say.  A lady's hands are lily white, but mine are full of cuts and segs.  And since I'm pushing all the day, I've great big muscles on my legs.  I try to be respectable, but Sir, the shame, God save my soul.  I work with naked, sweating men, who curse and swear and hew the coal.  The sights, the sounds, the smells, kind Sir, not even God could sense my shame.  I say my prayers, but what's the use? Tomorrow will be just the same.   Now, sometimes, Sir, I don't feel well, my stomach's sick, my head it aches.  I've got to hurry best I can. My knees feel weak, my back near breaks  And then I'm slow, and then I'm scared these naked men will batter me.  They can't be blamed, for if I'm slow, their families will starve, you see.  All the boys, they laugh at me, and Sir, the mirror tells me why.  Pale and dirty can't look nice. It doesn't matter how I try.  Great big muscles on my legs, a baldy patch upon my head.  A lady, Sir? Oh, no, not me. I should have been a boy instead.   I praise your good intentions, Sir, I love your kind and gentle heart  But now it's 1842, and you and I, we're miles apart.  A hundred years and more will pass before we're standing side by side  But please accept my grateful thanks. God bless you Sir, at least you tried.

"Over the centuries, laissez-faire argumentation for low wages has shifted from insisting upon the iron necessity of child labor to the wonderfulness of open borders. But the combination of monetary interest driving intellectual arguments remains very similar." - Steve Sailer.

Who Will Light The Olympic Flame ?

Any suggestions ?

female 1/2 on
male evens
woman in hijab 3-1
disabled female athlete 4-1
ethnic minority London schoolgirl 9-1
ethnic minority London schoolboy 15-1
woman in burka 16-1
Fabrice Muamba 20-1 (Coral are currently offering 66-1 - a snip)
celebrity chef 25-1
Gok Wan 25-1
mother of victim of racist murder (minority) 30-1
British soldier (disabled, minority) 50-1
victim of 7/7 bombing (minority) 100-1
victim of 7/7 bombing (white) 200-1
British soldier (disabled, white) 200-1
Muhammad Ali 250-1
Gazza 250-1
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown 250-1
able-bodied heterosexual white male 250-1
British soldier (minority) 300-1
British soldier (white) 400-1
Julie Bindel 500-1
Billy Bragg 500-1
Rose West 1000-1
Laurie Penny 1000-1
mother of victim of racist murder (white) 300,000,000-1
Sir Geoffrey Boycott 600,000,000-1

Dumb Britain

"Danger: Fiery lava is flunged tens of feet up in the air splashes down Mount Etna on the island of Sicily, Italy"

Flunged ?

But this one's quite evil.

"The big thaw: Greenland ice cover vanishes in just four days"

Greenland has a couple of miles of ice cover - miles deep. What they're reporting is that satellite data appears to show surface melting - how much is not specified - over nearly all that ice cover. If the Greenland ice cap had vanished we'd be a smaller island, as East Anglia would be submerged.

What's particularly bad is that a more measured - or better sub-edited - report the previous day, by Seith Borenstein, ran as follows :

Even Greenland's coldest place showed melting. Records show that last happened in 1889 and occurs about once every 150 years.

Nasa says three satellites saw what it calls unprecedented melting over four days beginning on 8 July. Most of the thick ice remains. But what was unusual was that the melting occurred over a widespread area.

Nasa says the melting area went from 40 per cent of the ice sheet to 97 per cent. Until now, the most extensive melt seen by satellites in the past 30 years was about 55 per cent.

Scientists cannot say yet if the melting is from global warming or natural.

One should never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. The Mail, like the Telegraph, seems to hire illiterate subs - the Indie goes for scientific illiterates. Fair play to the Indie's commenters - they're ripping into the headline in fine style. One of them adds quotes which make it plain that either writer Steve Connor or the subs are guilty of suppressio veri as well as suggestio falsi.

"Given the decades-old ice-core evidence, "you could make the case that it's not unexpected to see it now," the University of Georgia's Mote said."

 (not that such things are any bar to a career in journalism. Previous correspondent Charles Arthur is now at the Guardian. And in the economics field, former Telegraphist Edmund Conway - the chap who thinks the offspring of the Karen Matthews' of this world are going to be paying the ageing boomers hospital bills - is now economics correspondent at Sky News.)
  

We Are All Innocent

PC Simon Harwood cleared of the manslaughter of Ian Tomlinson.

"Neither jury heard details of Harwood's prior disciplinary record, which can only be reported now. This includes how he quit the Met on health grounds in 2001 shortly before a planned disciplinary hearing into claims he illegally tried to arrest a driver after a road rage incident while off duty, altering his notes to retrospectively justify the actions. Harwood was nonetheless able to join another force, Surrey, before returning to serve with the Met in 2005.

He allegedly punched, throttled, kneed or threatened other suspects while in uniform in other alleged incidents."

Eight men cleared of deliberately running over three Muslim men in Winson Green last summer. This report from Ghana on the trial is illuminating on the racial makeup of those charged and on who was in the death car.

I don't think people are going to be too chuffed about either of these verdicts. But the unchuffedness of the Guardianista is not like unto the unchuffedness of the ummah.

If Farzana and Iftikhar Ahmed are cleared of the murder of their daughter Shafilea we'll have the hat-trick.

If That Was Your Name, Wouldn't You Want To Shoot Someone Too?

DECATUR - Three suspects who were arrested last week in connection with the shooting death of 24-year-old Billy J. Rutherford were each charged Thursday with three counts of first-degree murder.
Documents released by the Macon County State's Attorney's Office after the filings revealed details of the homicide, including possible motives.
Shitavious J. Cook, 15, was arraigned Thursday morning on his charges, punishable by up to life imprisonment.

(via the comments at Steve Sailer's)

"I'm not in favour of tax avoidance ..."

Labour leader Ed Miliband said: "I'm not in favour of tax avoidance obviously, but I don't think it is for politicians to lecture people about morality.
"I think what the politicians need to do is - if the wrong thing is happening - change the law to prevent that tax avoidance happening."

Er ... could that be this Ed Miliband?

"David Miliband, the schools minister, and his brother Ed, the chancellor’s economic adviser, are set to avoid paying thousands of pounds in tax through an Inland Revenue loophole which the Labour party pledged to close. "


The Sunday Times has learnt that after Ralph Miliband, the Marxist father of David and Ed, died in 1994, he transferred almost all his assets, including homes in London and Oxfordshire, to his wife.


However, after taking professional advice, the family is understood to have posthumously rewritten his will to give 20% of the London home to both David and Ed.

This scheme is called a “deed of variation” and was highlighted by the chancellor in opposition as an unacceptable way in which the wealthy avoid paying death duties."

“Nice Euro you got here. Be a shame if somebody broke it.”

I get the impression the Euro elite, and especially the Germans, are very disappointed with the Greek vote. A Syringia vote would have been the signal for no EU money, bank runs, Euro exit within a few days.

Spain, Portugal, Italy would all get the message loud and clear.

“Nice Euro you got here. Be a shame if somebody broke it.”

Now the Greeks are in for more years of misery and unemployment - and IMHO they'll still end up out of the Euro. The same may well apply to Spain.

The analogy is a girl – as it might be Angela – with a hopelessly dependent boyfriend, Alexis. She doesn’t want to hurt him, but wants to dump him, so treats him badly in the hope he’ll find a pair from somewhere and break it off himself. Better for her, better for his self-respect.

Instead, he takes all the abuse and promises to be a better boy in future. Angela’s heart sinks … she’s still stuck with him…


It would certainly have been “interesting” in a Chinese curse sense had Syringia won. As I understand it from here, Syringia’s policies are

a) stay in the Euro
b) no to the austerity package

People voting for that platform would have been terribly disappointed one way or the other. If b) had been implemented, the plug would be pulled on Greece “pour encourager les autres”.

At the other end of Europe, Mrs Merkel campaigns on

a) no money printing, no German taxpayer subsidising the periphery
b) total commitment to the Euro project

Again, one way or the other voters believing both of those things are going to have a bit of a rude awakening.

Merkel is slowly, by inches, being dragged down the path of currency debasement and inflation, having sworn against it. The German people, having given up the Deutschmark on the understanding that the ECB would never countenance currency debasement and inflation, are also in for a rude awakening. The Euro elite don’t want to go down that path, but they’re running out of options, and Obama and Cameron are telling them “we’ve done it – what’s your problem?”

I personally find the prospect of the German electorate becoming massively disillusioned with their political leadership a lot more scary than a few thousand Greeks throwing things at the police. But then I’d never have thought that the leadership of the British working class would tolerate having their wages and conditions driven down by cheap imported labour, and I was wrong about that.









UPDATE - Jeremy Warner in the Telegraph on what some hedge funds are thinking :

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has said no to virtually every form of debt mutualisation so far proposed. But kicking and screaming, she's in practice already agreed to some – the bail-outs – and if the single currency is to survive in its current form, she'll eventually have to go a lot further. The German Chancellor is something of a tease – she says no until she says yes. Numerous lines in the sand have been drawn only eventually to be surrendered as the crisis intensifies.

"China is a kleptocracy of a scale never seen before in human history "

Hedge fund manager and top financial blogger John Hempton looks at the Chinese economy - basically describing how Chinese workers, forced by demography (one child policy) to save for their old age, and limited by the state in their investment options (to bank accounts with a below-inflation return), are robbed by inflation - the money going at low interest rates (negative real rates) to State Owned Enterprises - which are then looted by the elite.

The Chinese banks are the finest deposit franchises in human history. They can borrow huge amounts at ex-ante negative real returns.

And those deposits are mostly lent to State Owned enterprises.

The SOEs are the center of the Chinese kleptocracy. If you manage your way up the Communist Party of China and you play your politics really well may wind up senior in some State Owned Enterprise. This is your opportunity to loot on a scale unprecedented in human history.

Us Westerners see the skimming arrangements. If you want to sell kit (say high-end railway control equipment) to the Chinese SOE you don't sell it to them. You sell it to an intermediate company who on-sell it in China. From the Western perspective you pay a few percent for access. From the Chinese perspective – this is just a gentle form of looting.

And it is not the only one. The SOEs are looted every way until Tuesday...

A normal business – especially a State Owned dinosaur run by bureaucrats – would collapse under this scale of looting. But here is the key: the Chinese SOEs are financed at negative real rates.

A business – even a badly run business – can stand a lot of looting if it is (a) large and (b) funded at negative real rates.Those negative real rates are only possible because there are copious bank deposits available at negative real rates to State controlled banks.

People saving for their old age, then being robbed by high inflation to enrich a financial elite who benefit from negative real rates of interest? Thank God it couldn't happen here!




UPDATE - NYT.

"... a broad consensus of Chinese economists says the country is overdue for another big push to encourage private enterprise and to foster a shift toward a more consumer-driven economy. The challenge, they say, is turning back China’s domineering state sector. But that seems increasingly unlikely. Publicly controlled enterprises have become increasingly lucrative, generating wealth and privileges for hundreds of thousands of Communist Party members and their families. And in a clear sign of its position, the government has moved to limit public debate on economic policy, shutting out voices for change. "

Spanish Infantry Develop Rocket Arm

Remember Laban's trip to Asturias this time last year ?

"I really am surprised there's not mass civil disobedience. Their 1930s forebears - right or left - wouldn't have stood for it."

And our tour of the industrial valleys ?

As you drive up the AS117 through Langreo to San Martin, you could be in the Swansea Valley or Vale of Neath - in the days when the factories were still open.

It felt like early 60s South Wales - a main road and a railway along the valley, houses clustered above where the valley was wide and crammed in where it wasn't, factories below.

At San Martin, we passed the Pozo Soton coal mine and the Galva Zinc plant. The former is now the centre of what looks like a rerun of the 1984-5 UK miners strike.

Mining has been a key element in the local economy in the provinces of Asturias and Leon for centuries. Many miners fear that government plans to reduce subsidies from 300m euros (£242m; $376m) to 110m euros will doom their industry.

Spanish coal miners armed with homemade rockets and slingshots have clashed with police over the country's austerity measures. They fired on the officers in El Entrego near Oviedo close to the mine 'El Soton' which has been hit by cutbacks in coal subsidies. Strikes, road blockades and mine sit-ins have hit 40 pits as 8,000 workers in northern Spain continued their protests.

(incidentally, I note that the Mail's coverage is much superior to the BBCs, and that you'll search the left Brit blogs in vain for a mention of this story)


Two points. I'm not at all opposed to subsidies in the right place and time. The pre-Euro Spanish government managed to keep the mines going without bankrupting itself. La vrai France, so beloved of the English, the France of small family farms and little towns full of real shops, is a product of tariff and subsidy - and long may it remain so.

And rocketry - those photographs brought back memories of a much more irresponsible Laban, and of "battles" between student houses fought across streets from attic windows. It's surprising how accurate a tube-launched rocket can be - but when launching from indoors the loader also needs to have a paper plate or similar handy, to block the rear of the tube - otherwise the room soon fills with smoke, and the sparks can set things ablaze. Just ask Mario Balotelli. 

Safe Haven II

Standard :

Eight women were attacked after being stalked in the “nappy valley” area of Battersea and Clapham, and around the Fulham Road. One victim was seven months pregnant and had a 17-month-old child in a pushchair. Most of the women were strangled from behind with a potentially fatal grip before being forced to the ground. Once down and fighting unconsciousness in front of their screaming children, rings worth up to £50,000 were prised from their fingers.

One gang member, 26-year-old Perrie Williams, even applied for an emergency loan to boost his benefit payments in February last year. A month later, he was on holiday in Miami. All the victims were terrified by the attacks and many suffered shocking injuries to their face and bodies. One woman needed reconstructive surgery to her jaw. Today, a jury at Kingston crown court convicted Williams, of Wandsworth Common, and Christopher Byom, 29, of Clapham, of conspiracy to rob. Anton Lord, 33, of Clapham, had earlier pleaded guilty to the same charge. They will be sentenced at a date to be confirmed.

In April 2009, Sandra Pilger was throttled from behind in front of her two-year-old son near the Fulham Road and her wedding and engagement rings worth £18,000 were taken. Elizabeth Proctor was with her 12-week-old son in a pushchair near Clapham Common when she was grabbed around the neck from behind. Nicola Griggs was attacked in front of her seven-year-old child and baby in a pushchair in Battersea, and Emma Enticott was attacked in Battersea with her three young children.Christina Sheehy was robbed of her £8,000 engagement ring in front of her four-year-old son, and Katherine Britton was pregnant when she was beaten to the ground in Clapham. After losing consciousness, she awoke to find her £11,000 engagement and wedding rings missing.

 Hmm. Apparently the kit was sold in Hatton Garden, whose famously naive jewellers would never be suspicious of a young black guy wanting to unload ten thousand quids worth of sparklers at a bargain price.

That's a familiar modus operandi of theirs. But at least their victims escaped the fate of Neil Williams and Andrew Owen, killed in the great Garotting Panic of 2007.

Safe Haven ?

This blog, last summer :

I was reading just the other day about how Central London property prices are soaring as homes in the capital's richest areas are increasingly seen as a 'safe haven' for capital.

Now the financial centres and the central luxury belt are full of rich people who can buy their way out of a lot of London's nastinesses - the schools, public transport. But as the safer areas become fewer, they'll start to feel increasingly like islands of wealth marooned in a resentful and lawless sea.

Telegraph :

Gangs of homeless Romanian beggars sleeping rough are turning one of London's most expensive streets into a 'disgusting health and safety hazard', it was claimed today. The group of around 50 beggars set up camp on the grassy central reservation of Park Lane after being moved on from nearby Marble Arch several days ago.

Local workers say the group, aged between 30 and 60, spend the afternoons gambling and drinking at the edge of Mayfair. One end of the central reservation, opposite an exclusive Aston Martin dealership, has been turned into a rubbish dump. Empty beer bottles, cigarette packets, half eaten food and clothes littered the grassy area, just a stone's throw from London's most exclusive homes and hotels.

A Westminster City Council spokesperson added: "Groups of homeless people have been moving around the area. They have slightly dispersed from Marble Arch. There is continued dialogue going on with outreach teams to try and get them to move on. They try to suggest that they return home and ask them what they are doing and how they are earning money. It is an ongoing issue and one which we think will require various strategies to tackle, including talking with the groups directly and monitoring chartered coaches arriving in London from Romania."

Now a protected group making the lives of ordinary Brits an utter misery over years is one thing for our rulers. Who cares about people who choose to live in Essex, for God's sake ?

But inconvenience and unpleasant vistas for the very rich (and very rich tourists) is something quite different. After all, it might affect the image of London as a financial centre and a welcoming haven for the world's wealthiest people. So I imagine the authorities will find ways and means - where there's a will, and all that. Nonetheless, it's a straw that shows the way the wind blows.