Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[Regularity]

Oh James, that’s awful news.

 

S*d banter about politics, this is real life.

[Regularity]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I read it as a sort of invocation of a deity.

I suspect Boris sees himself as Imperator.

 

What he has realised is that if he can get the right mix of issues over which people feel strongly enough, then they will change their allegiance away from whoever they support towards him, and as long as the issue is a strong enough one, he will keep the support of those voters.

So, replace racism with hostility to Eastern Europeans because they have white skin, so being anti-immigration is no longer a “racist” issue, and swing voters in several constituencies to your side. They have made the switch, and as long as the rhetoric is kept up, they will remain on-side. The Tories know this, and they also know that they can continue to shaft the economy of the North East of England (say) without needing to worry about them. Meanwhile, the left rips itself apart over the politics of envy rather than putting forward sensible explanations about the importance of rebuilding key public services, and alienates its base further on side-issues such as abolishing public schools: a puritanical irrelevance to most people who just want decent healthcare and pensions, and an alienation of people who have done well enough to put their kids through public education out of their own earnings (not via the privilege of inherited wealth) because they are so concerned over the disastrous performance of many state schools.

Either way, Boris and his chums know full well that they have these votes (either active switching to the Tories, or rejection of Labour/LibDems) in the bag, so can disregard their opinions.

[Welchester]

James, I'm so sorry. Do you know the Kipling thing? It doesn't help IME, but it puts it in a wider context.

 

Quote

 

“The Power of the Dog”

 

THERE is sorrow enough in the natural way

From men and women to fill our day;

And when we are certain of sorrow in store,

Why do we always arrange for more?

Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware

Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

 

Buy a pup and your money will buy

Love unflinching that cannot lie—

Perfect passion and worship fed

By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head. 

Nevertheless it is hardly fair

To risk your heart for a dog to tear.

 

When the fourteen years which Nature permits

Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,

And the vet’s unspoken prescription runs 

To lethal chambers or loaded guns,

Then you will find—it’s your own affair—

But … you’ve given your heart to a dog to tear.

 

When the body that lived at your single will,

With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!).

When the spirit that answered your every mood

Is gone—wherever it goes—for good,

You will discover how much you care,

And will give your heart to a dog to tear.

 

We’ve sorrow enough in the natural way,

When it comes to burying Christian clay.

Our loves are not given, but only lent,

At compound interest of cent per cent.

Though it is not always the case, I believe,

That the longer we’ve kept ’em, the more do we grieve:

For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,

A short-time loan is as bad as a long—

So why in—Heaven (before we are there)

Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

 

Makes me blub every time.

[Northroader]

Really sorry to hear that, Black Labrador if I remember right? 

[DonB]

Not had a dog for many years since losing a pure white Staffie   without warning to a brain bleed. 

My sympathies , James

 

[Methuselah]

On 17/10/2021 at 10:03, CKPR said:

Living in the badlands of the Marches, all planning decisions are made to suit the purveyors of  expensive identikit houses such as  B*rd*r O*k and their competitors , all of whom churn out the same factory produced vaguely scandimodern wooden houses for baby boomer retirees. The current batch are being built down the road from our place on what was previously stables and waterlogged rough pasture prone to flooding...

You omitted to mention the benefits to pedestrian safety of gridlock in Tenbury's only main through street, and the enrichment of the fine country air of all that surplus sewerage wafting-up from the overloaded sewers. No wonder such progress is so warmly welcomed in the locale.....

[Annie]

 

We've got Freedumbers here marching to protest the lockdowns in Auckland and the Waikato.  The good news is that 75% of NZ citizens are now double jabbed after a huge vaccination drive by our government

[Nearholmer]

That graphic is wonderful - I hope you won’t mind that I’ve snipped a copy.

 

K

[Annie]

7 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

That graphic is wonderful - I hope you won’t mind that I’ve snipped a copy.

 

K

Be my guest 

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

4 hours ago, Annie said:

 

We've got Freedumbers here marching to protest the lockdowns in Auckland and the Waikato.  The good news is that 75% of NZ citizens are now double jabbed after a huge vaccination drive by our government

 

 

We've had the same over here for what seems like an eternity. Now we're out of lockdown and approaching 80% double vaxxed the Freedumbers are protesting about new state laws that might help us control a future pandemic rather than stumbling along making unnecessary mistakes. Needless to say all these protests are coming from far right agitators of which we in Australia have seen a frightening growth in the last couple of years. Victoria which has had a quite successful and hard working Labor government for the last 8 years has been hardest hit by these idiots.

 

Tomorrow is Melbourne Cup Day which is a public holiday and these morons are trying to assemble a large protest at that. We've just come out of a lockdown that's lasted since August and people just want to be out having fun and these far right b$stards are trying to ruin that just to protest about getting vaccinated. There are times when I wish COVID was a virus that had evolved to target the far right and their Nazi fellow travellers. Perhaps we would have not been locked down for such extended periods.

 

My personal wish is that those who refuse to be vaccinated (without proof of medical reasons why they can't) and thus cannot be employed find that their unemployment benefits are refused. The last big lockdown was due to these idiots demonstrating in super spreader crowds.  I am really tired of these people are their perpetual self-indulgent claims about their democratic rights - they don't have any sort of democratic right to spread disease.

[Nearholmer]

There is a well-circulated meme, going along the lines “once a government has acquired powers, they will never give them up; our liberties will never be returned if we surrender them for even one second”.

 

Like all such things, there is a tiny germ of truth in it, around governments loving to centralise, and having real trouble devolving, but that is actually a different thing.

 

Even my BiL and SiL, who are a bit too non-discerning in what they count as a trusted news source IMO, have soaked-up a little of it, and I had to point out to them that we don’t live under a permanent state of quite oppressive emergency controls resulting from the application of the Defence of the Realm Act in WW1 ……. These things do get repealed and adjusted in a functioning democracy.

 

There are real things to be worried about in terms of erosion of liberty/privacy, some from scatter-gun stuff by governments trying to manage terrorist threats, but many and greater from privately-owned mega-corporations that don’t care a fig about being intrusive and controlling, provided they can make a buck out of it.

 

And, perversity squared: the same alt-right-libertarians who want vanishingly small government (aka no democratic control), also advocate a completely unfettered free market, with no control over corporations. So, they ain’t really interested in our liberties; they are interested in the liberty of corporations to exploit us all for profit.

 

That’s Monday’s rant out of the way, you’ll be glad to hear.

 

 

Edited November 1, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

17 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

There is a well-circulated meme, going along the lines “once a government has acquired powers, they will never give them up; our liberties will never be returned if we surrender them for even one second”.

 

There is a similar popular reluctance to give up the benefits conferred by big government such as health provision, universal education, and roads.

 

19 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

So, they ain’t really interested in our liberties; they are interested in the liberty of corporations to exploit us all for profit.

 

Quite so; they are simply standing firmly in the tradition of the slave-owning, westward-expanding founding fathers of the United States. It's no coincidence their flag was based on that of the East India Company.

[Nearholmer]

13 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

There is a similar popular reluctance to give up the benefits conferred by big government such as health provision, universal education, and roads.

Danger of this turning into scene from The Life of Brian.

[Caley Jim]

As I've said before, along with civil liberties come civil responsibilities, one of which is not to do anything which will harm your fellow citizens. 

 

Edit to add that I presume all these anti-vaxers/anti-restrictioners will expect the health services in their respective countries to apply all their resources to treating them when (not if) they catch the plague. 

 

Jim 

Edited November 1, 2021 by Caley Jim

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Caley Jim said:

As I've said before, along with civil liberties come civil responsibilities, one of which is not to do anything which will harm your fellow citizens. 

 

Though of course we all do things every day that harm our fellow citizens. 

[Annie]

24 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

Edit to add that I presume all these anti-vaxers/anti-restrictioners will expect the health services in their respective countries to apply all their resources to treating them when (not if) they catch the plague. 

Already we're seeing our hospital intensive care units filling up with unvaccinated people who are in crisis after catching the Delta variant and non urgent surgery getting delayed due to there being no ICU beds.  The infection rate here is still climbing, - our health dept science folk are warning that even with the population at 75% fully vaccinated there's very likely to be a disturbing number of deaths.

Edited November 1, 2021 by Annie

[rocor]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Though of course we all do things every day that harm our fellow citizens. 

 

Engage in activities that directly and indirectly produce CO2?

[Compound2632]

19 minutes ago, rocor said:

Engage in activities that directly and indirectly produce CO2?

 

That sort of thing; also buying things that have in the course of their production or distribution involved the exploitation of labour or the unsustainable use of resources, etc.

 

The principle of Liberation Theology is that sin is not merely personal but also institutional; it is not enough to repent of our own sins and seek amendment of life but society as a whole has to collectively so do. I think at the present time encouraging signs that society, or at least large sections of it, is going through the process of examination of conscience.

Edited November 1, 2021 by Compound2632

[alastairq]

They're discussing putting a tax on beef.

 

I think they'd be better off tackling climate change by putting a tax on brussels sprouts?

[Regularity]

There is a difference between personal freedom of will, which is what these loons think they are doing, and liberty of action, which is what they are trying to enforce through a misunderstanding of the word “right”. (Generally a word to be avoided, as it isn’t very well defined anywhere.)

So, they are perfectly free to deny the science, even to mix with other people of a similar mind. That’s freedom of will: no matter how much we might detest their ideas, they are welcome to have them.

However, they are not free to mix with the rest of us in denial of our desire to be protected.

 

Rousseau is good for this sort of stuff (the idea of the “social contract”, etc): the general will (the common good, for the benefit of the sovereign people) versus the “will of all”, which is a collective desire and in a healthy state, these two are congruent. Obviously, what we have hear is a vociferous group who are upsetting the apple cart, but the advantage of such situations is that the bad apples can be removed before they infect the good ones. (Oh dear, back to Descartes.)

[Regularity]

9 minutes ago, alastairq said:

They're discussing putting a tax on beef.

 

I think they'd be better off tackling climate change by putting a tax on brussels sprouts?

Ah, bless. An I’ll-informed attempt at humour which detracts from the sum of human knowledge…

 

(FYI, cows expel more greenhouse gases than any human ever could, even if they ate nothing more than Brussels sprouts, which is the reason behind the proposal to tax beef.)

[alastairq]

59 minutes ago, Regularity said:

h, bless. An I’ll-informed attempt at humour which detracts from the sum of human knowledge…

 Then you've never had to chugg along a narrow lane behind a so-called peleton of these things, huffing & puffing & farting their way through the once peaceful countryside?

 

Besides, as far as the UK is concerned, the economic [financial] cost of taxing our beef, far outweighs the financial cost of any saving of the environment.

In other words,  the results  would be negligible.

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, alastairq said:

 Then you've never had to chugg along a narrow lane behind a so-called peleton of these things, huffing & puffing & farting their way through the once peaceful countryside?

 

Sorry, sprouts on bicycles? I'm confused...

[alastairq]

Humans.....possibly the numerically- largest consumer of sprouts?  

[Compound2632]

Just now, alastairq said:

Humans.....possibly the numerically- largest consumer of sprouts?  

 

Yes, though I'll bet quite a few end up as pig-fodder. But do lycra-clad weekend cyclists eat any more of them than does the average person? I need to see some hard statistics here.