Sunday, February 28, 2010

Her Majesty's Worst Ever PM

Little did she know...[Many apologies - the initial version of this post omitted PM Heath altogether. Can't imagine how I left him out]You can't help wondering what Her Majesty thinks of the arrogant dunderheads she's had to deal with since her Coronation in 1953. Since she came to the throne she's had 11 Prime Ministers, and almost without exception, they have all fallen short.In her name, and without a shot being fired, they have surrendered...

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Clean Slate?

Kung babalikan ko ang mga naganap sa buhay ko nung nakaraang apat na taon, masasabi kong malaki nga rin ang naging pagkukulang ko. Pwede ring ako rin pala ay may kailangang pagbayaran at “ganti” lang din ang mga naganap last year. Pero nang dahil sa pride ko, hindi ko pa rin matanggap na maaari ngang ang insecurities ko ang may kagagawan sa dinaranas kong kung ano man ito. Maganda ang kahulugan ng idiom na may kinalaman sa title ng blog post kong ito. Clean slate. Start anew, walang prejudice, hindi na iisipin ang nakaraan. Kung gaano man kaganda...

Friday, February 26, 2010

State Of Collapse

They thought he was a genius too*Never mind what your politics are, and never mind that the ONS has revised up Q4 economic growth to 0.3% (whoopee!), surely nobody can believe this government should remain in power. They are totally exhausted - out of energy, out of ideas, and out of credibility. Take the appalling case of Mid-Staffs NHS Trust. Here was a hospital that ticked all the boxes laid down by Labour's commissars, and got top marks. Yet for patients it was a hell-hole from which many did not escape alive. Even more disgusting,...

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Kuro-wanwan, Yuuko and Syaoran

I’m desperate in building a Chop Shop in Mafia Wars that I created dummy accounts for my “kids”. I know it’s a wrong move since they are not Facebookers or living entities to have their own e-mail accounts. I tried starting to play Mafia Wars with Yuuko and Kuro’s accounts but I was surprised there was no player class. Starting a new Mafia Wars account is surprisingly different. Oh well, it was a year ago when I created my first one so it really must have changed through time. I don’t know what to put in Kuro and Yuuko’s accounts since they don’t...

Better George

No time for a proper blog today, but Tyler has just read George's Mais Lecture. Overall, it's rather encouraging - in fact, Tyler almost feels he could have written long passages himself. True, we have heard much of it before, but he leaves us in no doubt that he sees the rapid build-up in government debt as being a much more significant threat to continued growth than early cuts in public spending. Specifically disagreeing with the left-wing economics...

Musings

I really still have troubles when I think of his activities outside my knowledge. Let's say school and after school. He rarely talks to me about his nightly activities, and also the things he does when I'm not around. He doesn't mention the people he's with, only in a few cases. I really do not want to prod him to tell everything, because I prefer to be discreet and just investigate silently. But it seems as if he could read every thought and action I do. It's not the higher case of paranoia I experienced before though. I still have these gut feelings...

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Tough Choices Are Tough

Furring up the public spending arteries: Labour's anti-obesity campaign in action*As regular readers will know, we have long called for the abolition of the £2.3bn pa Regional Development Agencies (eg see here). We have never seen any convincing evidence to suggest they have been successful in developing our struggling regional economies, and they have burned shedloads of taxpayers' money.So we were delighted when others such as St Vince...

Monday, February 22, 2010

Debt Trap - Lessons From History

1819 - what happens when government debt gets too high[Warning: this is another of those posts that turned out to be quite long]Are we too worried about the government's spiralling debts? According to the left-wing economics consensus the answer is yes. They reckon that gross debt of 83% of GDP, increasing at 11 percentage points pa (OECD projections), is perfectly sustainable into some unspecified "medium term". One of the arguments...

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Sticking With Stalin

Tyler has just finished reading Andrew Roberts' new history of WW2. It's actually rather disappointing, but as always there are bits of history that jump right out as being the tragic first run of some current farce. Take the wartime exploits of Comrade Stalin. In 1941, this supreme bully presided over a government and army so weakened by his horrific mismanagement that it pretty well imploded when confronted with the German invasion. As the...

Friday, February 19, 2010

The Confidence Thing

But he's not weighed down with debtAs we all know, if you lay 100 economists' letters end to end they still won't reach a conclusion. Except that this morning's two letters to the FT are packed with conclusions, especially the conclusion that we shouldn't cut public spending any time soon. Labour peer Lord Layard and nine other eminent economists (including four previous members of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee and two Nobel...

Thursday, February 18, 2010

OMG (Cont)

So.The first January fiscal deficit since the Black Death. The month when all those lovely Corporation Tax payments, and all those lovely self-assessment income tax cheques are supposed to come in, has instead turned into the Black Hole of Death.Tyler's back-of-envelope says that we're now on course for 2009-10 total borrowing of £180-185bn, compared to Darling's latest forecast of £178bn. Well, that's not so bad, you say....

£8.6m Defra Blood-Boiler

Right, deep breaths...As you will know, Labour have turned HMG into the UK's biggest advertiser - £540m in 2008-09 -  and these Defra ads are absolutely par for the course.Meanwhile BOM reader Ian and Beverley D have been keeping a count of the HMG ads they've heard on Heart FM. They only listen for a few minutes when they first wake up, but in a recent two week period they heard ads for:Metropolitan Police – Community Support OfficersHealth and Safety Executive – Safe Loading of VansNHS – MMR vaccinationsJobcentre Plus – Help with...

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Jobs Haircut

The other alternativeYesterday Tyler had a haircut. As usual he went to a shop owned and staffed by the Surrey Italians, one of a small local chain that's operated here for decades. But for the first time ever, his hair was cut by Il Padrone, the man who set up and owns the biz. Was there a problem?"Certainly there's a problem. Our takings are down 30%, the landlords won't cut the rent, and our bills are going through the roof.""30%? But...

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Does Anyone Know How To Fly This Thing?

Going upLadies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. You may have noticed we're currently flying through an area of turbulence. There is absolutely nothing to be concerned about, and we will soon level out. Althoooough... just as a precaution you might want to return to your seat immediately and assume the brace position. And if there are any pilots on board perhaps they would make themselves known to a member of the cabin crew....

Monday, February 15, 2010

The T Word

"And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." (Luke 2:1, King James Bible, 1611)"At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire." (Luke 2:1, New Living Translation, 2007)Just like NuEverything, New Bibles don't like to mention the word tax. Much better to call it something else, like census*.NuLabour have been...

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Fear Of Clowns

More than a passing resemblance to Bliar Imp.Tyler has just discovered what's been ailing him all these years. It's called coulrophobia - a morbid fear of clowns - and apparently P Diddy (whoever he is) suffers from it. Suddenly it all makes sense. As you will not need reminding, the country is currently in the clutches of the most terrrifying bunch of clowns ever to escape from a high security Big Top. Coulrophobia...

Friday, February 12, 2010

Pass The Parcel

The wrapping fell off this oneOK, cue the music. The game works like this:individual and company players build up huge parcels of debt they can never pay off;the bank players who've lent the money to the individual and company players pass on the parcels as quickly as possible;the music slows down, and the bank players suddenly realise that they're now holding other people's parcels which they suspect are not...

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Does The Swedish Model Actually Work?

The independent Kunskapsskolan schools certainly look better*As regular BOM readers will know, Tyler is a big fan of the Swedish free schools model - the one that allows new independent schools to set up in competition with local authority schools, and then lets parents choose whether to have their children educated in an authority school or have the authority pay for a place at the free school. Choice and competition to drive...