In Germany, Houses with Solar panels on the roof are now left to burn down because of safety reason -- the firefighters don't want to be electrocuted.
That is going to be an interesting one, because the insurance premiums will be epic(if available at all), but since fire insurance is voluntary in Germany the question is, how many people will want to take the gamble. And if the house is not detached... will you be able to stop your neighbor from installing this stuff on their roof?
translated article
original article
A bad law used against our enemies still is not our friend
Tim Worstall seriously considered to change his mind about anonymity in rape cases because Al Gore was implicated and he doesn't like Al Gore.
Now that Al Gore has been cleared will Tim unchange his mind again and accept that in fact the Al Gore case and his reaction is a classic example as to why men accused of rape should be anonymous until proven guilty?
If there are other women who need to come forward(why haven't they in the first place? Not shopping your rapist/molester to the cops ASAP means you're part of the next crimes he commits...), those women can do that when the case is published and then further prosecution should be considered.
And even though the law is more prone to opinion than science, evidence still beats the 'consensus' (just like with climate 'science') just like logic still trumps emotion.
Now that Al Gore has been cleared will Tim unchange his mind again and accept that in fact the Al Gore case and his reaction is a classic example as to why men accused of rape should be anonymous until proven guilty?
If there are other women who need to come forward(why haven't they in the first place? Not shopping your rapist/molester to the cops ASAP means you're part of the next crimes he commits...), those women can do that when the case is published and then further prosecution should be considered.
And even though the law is more prone to opinion than science, evidence still beats the 'consensus' (just like with climate 'science') just like logic still trumps emotion.
Middle Ages Librivox Collection
Commenting on this blog post made me think that I might as well make a list of my favorite Librivox MA books.
Manners, Customs and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period -- this book is a lot of fun and no, not much has changed ever since those times either(take special note of chapters 30&31...). Much more interesting than the usual laundry list of nobles and their wars and marriages!
Popular History of France from the Earliest Times The chapter on Charlemagne is fascinating! The book has 3 completed volumes, and a 4th is in the making.
There is also The History of London which starts earlier but because it's written for boys back in the day, it is quite easy listening and far more deep than a BBC production and not as preachy or patronising as well :)
Manners, Customs and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period -- this book is a lot of fun and no, not much has changed ever since those times either(take special note of chapters 30&31...). Much more interesting than the usual laundry list of nobles and their wars and marriages!
Popular History of France from the Earliest Times The chapter on Charlemagne is fascinating! The book has 3 completed volumes, and a 4th is in the making.
There is also The History of London which starts earlier but because it's written for boys back in the day, it is quite easy listening and far more deep than a BBC production and not as preachy or patronising as well :)
Pay-as-you-buy-future-litter
Tim offers a socialist solution to an age old problem: littering.
I think I prefer the capitalist approach and make the user pay:
Plus it would generate a nice pool of money that could be used to invest/etc. The savings from not being blackmailed into paying for other people's rubbish easily make up the extra bureaucracy involved, most of which can be automated anyway.
Of course fridges etc would cost about £100 more but that is only the true cost, instead of the subsidised price that is advertised at the moment.
I think I prefer the capitalist approach and make the user pay:
Maybe we need some kind of disposal certificate number etched on the appliance, where on purchase of a new item, we pay the disposal costs upfront, plus a bond, which gets refunded (with interest) when the item finally gets collected by a council.
Plus it would generate a nice pool of money that could be used to invest/etc. The savings from not being blackmailed into paying for other people's rubbish easily make up the extra bureaucracy involved, most of which can be automated anyway.
Of course fridges etc would cost about £100 more but that is only the true cost, instead of the subsidised price that is advertised at the moment.
Hero worship of Raoul Moat
Inspector Gadgets blogentry is interesting -- like many he is so disgusted by the entire thing that he just fails to see why people are paying Moat this kind of tribute. Here is my comment:
I'm amazed you don't understand that this hero worship of Moat actually is the last remnants of an instinct for decent principles his fans have.
What (distorted shades of) values did he demonstrate to his audience (not to us!)?
1) He didn't just discard his ex, he cared enough to be seriously upset(if he didn't he'd not have shot her and just moved on to the next woman, as there was a queue of 'ladies' waiting for him anyway). Most men of his 'status' (and stature) nowadays wouldn't care about loving (for strange values thereof) a women at all but change them like underpants.
Women appreciate that kind of 'romantic loyalty' nowadays, especially since the only steady men on offer (if available at all) are feminised wimps. (and of course, all those 'good girls' would not have set Moat and the new guy up for her private Circus Maximus game either, honest guv)
2) Moat took care of the guy who 'stole' his girl and lived in his house (You had that spot on. in fact this entire thing was an Anglo-Saxon honour killing). This does have a lot of appeal, especially to the hen-pecked and cuckolded males of today.
3) He took on 'The Man'. Chavs, just like Lefties have a penchant for this probably from watching too many movies or so... the dream of David vs Goliath lives on here.
4) He did what he said he would -- he was a man of his word. This is a rare thing nowadays.
In other words, in todays' world of neutered plastic people, Moat tried hard to be a 'real man'(tm), and whilst it was a caricature thereof, it still comes closer to 'the dream' than reality -- he was a real life 'Conan the Barbarian'.
The hero worship of Moat is a strange protest at modern morals more than it is a tribute.
====
As for the tale about baseball bat to spine... look, if he whacked her with this in any meaningful way, she'd be in a wheelchair(...). As for the rest of her story I refer the honourable Inspector to the tattoo she wears and the fact that they appeared to have a BDSM relationship without safeword or sanity. I'm certain that *everything* she claims is true, just not in the way we think it is... ;-D
I'm amazed you don't understand that this hero worship of Moat actually is the last remnants of an instinct for decent principles his fans have.
What (distorted shades of) values did he demonstrate to his audience (not to us!)?
1) He didn't just discard his ex, he cared enough to be seriously upset(if he didn't he'd not have shot her and just moved on to the next woman, as there was a queue of 'ladies' waiting for him anyway). Most men of his 'status' (and stature) nowadays wouldn't care about loving (for strange values thereof) a women at all but change them like underpants.
Women appreciate that kind of 'romantic loyalty' nowadays, especially since the only steady men on offer (if available at all) are feminised wimps. (and of course, all those 'good girls' would not have set Moat and the new guy up for her private Circus Maximus game either, honest guv)
2) Moat took care of the guy who 'stole' his girl and lived in his house (You had that spot on. in fact this entire thing was an Anglo-Saxon honour killing). This does have a lot of appeal, especially to the hen-pecked and cuckolded males of today.
3) He took on 'The Man'. Chavs, just like Lefties have a penchant for this probably from watching too many movies or so... the dream of David vs Goliath lives on here.
4) He did what he said he would -- he was a man of his word. This is a rare thing nowadays.
In other words, in todays' world of neutered plastic people, Moat tried hard to be a 'real man'(tm), and whilst it was a caricature thereof, it still comes closer to 'the dream' than reality -- he was a real life 'Conan the Barbarian'.
The hero worship of Moat is a strange protest at modern morals more than it is a tribute.
====
As for the tale about baseball bat to spine... look, if he whacked her with this in any meaningful way, she'd be in a wheelchair(...). As for the rest of her story I refer the honourable Inspector to the tattoo she wears and the fact that they appeared to have a BDSM relationship without safeword or sanity. I'm certain that *everything* she claims is true, just not in the way we think it is... ;-D
The cost of children
Tim Worstall makes a good point here, but doesn't follow the trail back to the money and so misses the actual issues, I think. Hence my comment:
The core of the problem here is that children no longer are necessary for survival as old people no longer are live-in family members but get fostered out to care homes and then mostly forgotten.
Plus women are free to work nowadays instead of being stuck at home, and the reason they wanted to be free of that drudge in the first place is that being full-time mom and nurse to one’s parents is a pretty crap job that no-one enjoys all that much.
So children and old people instead of being a important investment that brings in wealth and helping hands to the family, have become a elective cost, a luxury item, and it’s financially a foolish decision to have them around(a bit like buying a boat)
And since IHT/forced care payments swallows a lot of the inheritance there isn’t the incentive either to earn that money and look after the old, after all, the state has to pay because that is what the old dears paid tax for all their lives, right?
I don’t think that this way of doing things will last longer than my generation, love doesn’t appear to be a great incentive to keep things going as the amount of abandoned, family-less and disposable people of all ages everywhere prove to us.
Applied Modus Ponens Abuse
When discussing anything(foxes, guns, Ecstasy, let's call it 'Problem A'), at some point in the flow of discussion, some muppet always pops up and argues the toss as follows:
Problem B > Problem A by a huge margin, hence we should ban B, banning B is ridiculous, ergo, we should tolerate A.
Problem 1) Modus ponens (if -> then) is only one directional, that is, when it rains I take my umbrella, but taking my umbrella doesn't cause it to rain.
Problem 2) Horseriding is not Ecstasy, gun ownwership can not be compared to traffic accidents, and foxes cannot be compared to dogs either. The only thing all those have in common is that someone is taking a risk and all those events have the potential to produce more or less mangled people. Making a milkmaid calculation involving yearly traffic accident tolls as the benchmark is going to end up in no-one doing anything about problems ever, because statistically, accidents are nearly at the top here, and of course life being the terminally fatal STD that it is, occupies Nr. 1 in the death charts. (deal)
Problem 3) As for tolerating things we don't like... sometimes it's correct to prevent something, at other times, the same action is simply meddling. There is no magic rule that covers everything, other than: 'Thou shalt use common sense'.
Problem 4) Adding problems together in an effort to cancel them out is always an exponential affair, because in this kind of calculus, problems don't subtract, they multiply.
Problem B > Problem A by a huge margin, hence we should ban B, banning B is ridiculous, ergo, we should tolerate A.
Problem 1) Modus ponens (if -> then) is only one directional, that is, when it rains I take my umbrella, but taking my umbrella doesn't cause it to rain.
Problem 2) Horseriding is not Ecstasy, gun ownwership can not be compared to traffic accidents, and foxes cannot be compared to dogs either. The only thing all those have in common is that someone is taking a risk and all those events have the potential to produce more or less mangled people. Making a milkmaid calculation involving yearly traffic accident tolls as the benchmark is going to end up in no-one doing anything about problems ever, because statistically, accidents are nearly at the top here, and of course life being the terminally fatal STD that it is, occupies Nr. 1 in the death charts. (deal)
Problem 3) As for tolerating things we don't like... sometimes it's correct to prevent something, at other times, the same action is simply meddling. There is no magic rule that covers everything, other than: 'Thou shalt use common sense'.
Problem 4) Adding problems together in an effort to cancel them out is always an exponential affair, because in this kind of calculus, problems don't subtract, they multiply.
It's time for Kalamares...
The evidence:
There is only one way of sorting this:
Kalamares "Paul"
500gm medium-sized squid (or, an entire Paul)
for dredging:
100gm cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
small pinch of Garam Masala
for the batter:
1 egg
100gm cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup very cold water
Procedure:
Clean Paul and remove insides and ink, leaving only the body and tentacles. Cut Paul's evil, treasonous tentacles horizontally, to create about 1/4 inch rings.
Beat egg and blend in flour. Add very cold water and stir until batter is smooth.
Combine dry ingredients for dredging - flour, salt, and spices. Use a plastic bag to dredge Paul's remains comprehensively (and hygienically) in that mix.
Using chopsticks to prevent the flour and batter from clumping, dip floured Paul into the cold batter and deep fry in hot oil. Do not overcook to keep Paul tender, about one minute or just when the batter turns crispy.
Enjoy with green salad, lemon wedges, chips and an ice cold German beer(Pils is great here, but a Flens of course is better), and remember, Barcelona football club didn't pay it's players' June wages.
UPDATE: http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0,1518,705298,00.html All you ever wanted to know about Octopie (and more)
There is only one way of sorting this:
Kalamares "Paul"
500gm medium-sized squid (or, an entire Paul)
for dredging:
100gm cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
small pinch of Garam Masala
for the batter:
1 egg
100gm cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup very cold water
Procedure:
Clean Paul and remove insides and ink, leaving only the body and tentacles. Cut Paul's evil, treasonous tentacles horizontally, to create about 1/4 inch rings.
Beat egg and blend in flour. Add very cold water and stir until batter is smooth.
Combine dry ingredients for dredging - flour, salt, and spices. Use a plastic bag to dredge Paul's remains comprehensively (and hygienically) in that mix.
Using chopsticks to prevent the flour and batter from clumping, dip floured Paul into the cold batter and deep fry in hot oil. Do not overcook to keep Paul tender, about one minute or just when the batter turns crispy.
Enjoy with green salad, lemon wedges, chips and an ice cold German beer(Pils is great here, but a Flens of course is better), and remember, Barcelona football club didn't pay it's players' June wages.
UPDATE: http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0,1518,705298,00.html All you ever wanted to know about Octopie (and more)
An idea for a new familiy law model
When we made divorce legal, we drove a cart and horses through the bedrock of our society. Chesterton was pretty spot on with his analysis, except that the result was even worse than he anticipated.
However, now it's done and there is no way we can make divorce illegal again unless we wish to descend into barbarism, as society has moved on, and the old models do no longer fit modern lifestyles and mores. We need a new model.
So we need to ask 'what was marriage?' Clearly, the christian model thereof no longer is applicable to the majority of our citizens, and the mess we legislated what was left to death with also is unworkable.
However, there remains the laborious and expensive business of raising the young, and, in this case, there is no remedy for getting it wrong, a child ruined is a child lost forever.
Marriage no longer is the unbreakable contract between a man and a woman and the idea of a lifelong romantic attachment as the norm in life and as a signature element of our culture it has been dropped.
We also need to accommodate a huge variety of different lifestyles and believes.
A side-effect has been that the kids(if any) have been turned into valuable hostages and the game strategies are decided by lawyers and what the law makes possible, with payouts and perks approaching lottery win (taken right out of the children's mouths)
However, kids are the people who have the main interest in a marriage working out, and they are the main losers in divorce cases, no matter what deal the adults eventually agree on.
Looking further down the line, being a single parent family kid is often a very lonely childhood -- and some adults have issues with their parental behaviour when there is no second adult around too. There are a heap of other reasons (you can probably figure out yourself...). No matter how much you gilden the cage here, this is a complete disaster for the child.
So, let's start with the idea that children have certain requirements in life -- enough food, nappies and so on, but also, that they have needs to have 2 parents who will be there for them until they are 18, and that they have a right to a happy childhood that allows them to develop into competent people.
One parent families offer none of the above, and for many kids they work out as a insidious forms of serial child abuse. (for many reasons!) Also for the single parent this often is a tough task, and quite a few people get pushed to their limits and end up behaving destructively.
So, let's rewrite the concept of 'family' with the children as benefactors and the parents as providers(instead of the kids being a celebration of romance), and let's give the kids some rights and control over how this family life is conducted, and let's drop the idea that the adults in the family have any rights over finances or the kids, but make the kids a legal entity that has a direct claim to any family assets.
In other words, we need to severely curtail out adults' rights and promote children's rights instead.
As an idea collection in no particular order:
Being married entitles people to have children legally, because the union supplies two guardians for the planned children. Children born out of wedlock get to adopt two parents by default, since otherwise, they could not command two guardians which should be the minimum of parents a child has. However this does not invalidate the obligation of the physical parents to pay alimony and whatever else is required to compensate the kids for loss of blood parents.
Also, there is a compulsory DNA test at every birth to verify parentage in order to protect the genetic rights of the children(medicines for example). (yes you may stipulate donors of course who would not be financially liable, but still genetically responsible, and such children should have access to their blood relatives) Only one such marriage is allowed per life and only widow(ers) have the right to remarry with full conception rights. Because there no longer is a legally recognized romantic part of the marriage, fraudulent adultery that results in pregnancy should get a jail term after parental duties have been discharged as this is one of the most terrible frauds that can be done to a man, the child and the donor. However, in the meanwhile, people will be bound to *all* the children the marriage produces. If you want to be uncharitable, you'd call the marriage partners 'breeding mates' (and you'd be spot on). Note: none of this says anything about your private sexuality. Unless I see a disgusted, shocked horse I don't care just don't make anyone other than yourself unhappy... romance is great but your sexlife should not be a factor in your parenthood -- marriage is about raising children, and so why not be direct about it and say it like it is: parents work for their kids -- the children own the parents, not the other way round.
If there is a separation that cannot be avoided for self-inflicted causes, the children are removed as a family unit and placed with adoptive parents, and both original parents are liable for the full maintenance. Children get to decide their own access rights, and parents will have a duty to attend. Widowers or people whose spouse is otherwise incapacitated (not jail birds tho) will need a different set of rules here, but that would disgress so I'm not dealing with that there, there are obvious common sense solutions tho.
Why such a radical change?
Adults wanted to be liberated from the moral constraints of romantic marriage, but in the process abandoned their children. I think that changing the basic focus of the family contract in the way I described would be a very good remedy for many problems we have with modernity, whilst leaving people their essential freedoms to indulge in *after* they done their duties.
This change also actually restores the original essence of marriage and basically nixes the permission to divorce -- you can still divorce your spouse, but you remain property of your kids (think indenture) for as long as they have a legitimate claim on you and you only lose the right to continue to breed as to protect the interests of your existing children who would be in direct competition with your new family.
It would also elevate children to be free people who have rights instead of being quasi-chattles of their parents.
However, now it's done and there is no way we can make divorce illegal again unless we wish to descend into barbarism, as society has moved on, and the old models do no longer fit modern lifestyles and mores. We need a new model.
So we need to ask 'what was marriage?' Clearly, the christian model thereof no longer is applicable to the majority of our citizens, and the mess we legislated what was left to death with also is unworkable.
However, there remains the laborious and expensive business of raising the young, and, in this case, there is no remedy for getting it wrong, a child ruined is a child lost forever.
Marriage no longer is the unbreakable contract between a man and a woman and the idea of a lifelong romantic attachment as the norm in life and as a signature element of our culture it has been dropped.
We also need to accommodate a huge variety of different lifestyles and believes.
A side-effect has been that the kids(if any) have been turned into valuable hostages and the game strategies are decided by lawyers and what the law makes possible, with payouts and perks approaching lottery win (taken right out of the children's mouths)
However, kids are the people who have the main interest in a marriage working out, and they are the main losers in divorce cases, no matter what deal the adults eventually agree on.
Looking further down the line, being a single parent family kid is often a very lonely childhood -- and some adults have issues with their parental behaviour when there is no second adult around too. There are a heap of other reasons (you can probably figure out yourself...). No matter how much you gilden the cage here, this is a complete disaster for the child.
So, let's start with the idea that children have certain requirements in life -- enough food, nappies and so on, but also, that they have needs to have 2 parents who will be there for them until they are 18, and that they have a right to a happy childhood that allows them to develop into competent people.
One parent families offer none of the above, and for many kids they work out as a insidious forms of serial child abuse. (for many reasons!) Also for the single parent this often is a tough task, and quite a few people get pushed to their limits and end up behaving destructively.
So, let's rewrite the concept of 'family' with the children as benefactors and the parents as providers(instead of the kids being a celebration of romance), and let's give the kids some rights and control over how this family life is conducted, and let's drop the idea that the adults in the family have any rights over finances or the kids, but make the kids a legal entity that has a direct claim to any family assets.
In other words, we need to severely curtail out adults' rights and promote children's rights instead.
As an idea collection in no particular order:
Being married entitles people to have children legally, because the union supplies two guardians for the planned children. Children born out of wedlock get to adopt two parents by default, since otherwise, they could not command two guardians which should be the minimum of parents a child has. However this does not invalidate the obligation of the physical parents to pay alimony and whatever else is required to compensate the kids for loss of blood parents.
Also, there is a compulsory DNA test at every birth to verify parentage in order to protect the genetic rights of the children(medicines for example). (yes you may stipulate donors of course who would not be financially liable, but still genetically responsible, and such children should have access to their blood relatives) Only one such marriage is allowed per life and only widow(ers) have the right to remarry with full conception rights. Because there no longer is a legally recognized romantic part of the marriage, fraudulent adultery that results in pregnancy should get a jail term after parental duties have been discharged as this is one of the most terrible frauds that can be done to a man, the child and the donor. However, in the meanwhile, people will be bound to *all* the children the marriage produces. If you want to be uncharitable, you'd call the marriage partners 'breeding mates' (and you'd be spot on). Note: none of this says anything about your private sexuality. Unless I see a disgusted, shocked horse I don't care just don't make anyone other than yourself unhappy... romance is great but your sexlife should not be a factor in your parenthood -- marriage is about raising children, and so why not be direct about it and say it like it is: parents work for their kids -- the children own the parents, not the other way round.
If there is a separation that cannot be avoided for self-inflicted causes, the children are removed as a family unit and placed with adoptive parents, and both original parents are liable for the full maintenance. Children get to decide their own access rights, and parents will have a duty to attend. Widowers or people whose spouse is otherwise incapacitated (not jail birds tho) will need a different set of rules here, but that would disgress so I'm not dealing with that there, there are obvious common sense solutions tho.
Why such a radical change?
Adults wanted to be liberated from the moral constraints of romantic marriage, but in the process abandoned their children. I think that changing the basic focus of the family contract in the way I described would be a very good remedy for many problems we have with modernity, whilst leaving people their essential freedoms to indulge in *after* they done their duties.
This change also actually restores the original essence of marriage and basically nixes the permission to divorce -- you can still divorce your spouse, but you remain property of your kids (think indenture) for as long as they have a legitimate claim on you and you only lose the right to continue to breed as to protect the interests of your existing children who would be in direct competition with your new family.
It would also elevate children to be free people who have rights instead of being quasi-chattles of their parents.
Drugs: Conservative principle substituted for Lefty thinking
The fascinating thing about drugs is, that it turns Left into Right and vice versa and swaps the core concepts those political sides hold dear.
The Left has a fetish for central planning and nannying and the good of the collective over that of the individual, whereas the Right has a longstanding libertarian tradition, where people are responsible for themselves and the freedom of the individual to choose is paramount, that is, they allow and expect people to organise and police themselves as a core principle of their philosophy.
Whilst large parts of the Left are suddenly championing personal responsibility and freedoms and complete drugs legalisation, the Right suddenly turns Maoist and demands that individuals sacrifice personal freedoms and takes away personal responsibility to replace it with a diktat to yield to the greater good.
Weird, huh?
I see it as an opportunity to turn lefties into natural conservatives since for once they actually have made an intellectual start here on the road to recovery *snicker* and also, as an chance to question the Right's adherence to core principles because every time they drop them and go all pseudo-socialist on everyone, this is when everything else goes to (ahem) pot for them(as it always does for anyone dabbling in lefty strategies).
The drugs debate is only a symptom of a malaise that started about 40 years ago where Left and Right no longer define themselves properly but started to borrow from each other -- which means they are turning into the one and the same side (and we already have our democracy almost completely hijacked by a professional political class) and so, without the differences, no policing (and renewal by challenge) of either philosophy is taking place, and the principles are rotting from within through constant compromise.
My favorite politician, a guy called Roland Koch has recently left politics for good, and other competent people who once were our great conservative talents have recently left the crumbling CDU which no longer has any principles (let alone conservative ones) at all on their agenda ever since IM Erika has taken them over... I really hope that those guys are going to form a new, proper conservative party that Germany deserves to have, if anyone can do it at all, they have the principles, culture and know-how to. Not saying they are perfect, but they are a darn side less confused than the others...
In the meanwhile, all we can do is play some Lou Reed in appreciation of the epic mess:
Ps.: The Tories in the UK are only one election away from this situation as well, maybe even less. Not much holds them together anymore on the principle side, the clear blue water has turned quite muddy in the past 20 years :(
The Left has a fetish for central planning and nannying and the good of the collective over that of the individual, whereas the Right has a longstanding libertarian tradition, where people are responsible for themselves and the freedom of the individual to choose is paramount, that is, they allow and expect people to organise and police themselves as a core principle of their philosophy.
Whilst large parts of the Left are suddenly championing personal responsibility and freedoms and complete drugs legalisation, the Right suddenly turns Maoist and demands that individuals sacrifice personal freedoms and takes away personal responsibility to replace it with a diktat to yield to the greater good.
Weird, huh?
I see it as an opportunity to turn lefties into natural conservatives since for once they actually have made an intellectual start here on the road to recovery *snicker* and also, as an chance to question the Right's adherence to core principles because every time they drop them and go all pseudo-socialist on everyone, this is when everything else goes to (ahem) pot for them(as it always does for anyone dabbling in lefty strategies).
The drugs debate is only a symptom of a malaise that started about 40 years ago where Left and Right no longer define themselves properly but started to borrow from each other -- which means they are turning into the one and the same side (and we already have our democracy almost completely hijacked by a professional political class) and so, without the differences, no policing (and renewal by challenge) of either philosophy is taking place, and the principles are rotting from within through constant compromise.
My favorite politician, a guy called Roland Koch has recently left politics for good, and other competent people who once were our great conservative talents have recently left the crumbling CDU which no longer has any principles (let alone conservative ones) at all on their agenda ever since IM Erika has taken them over... I really hope that those guys are going to form a new, proper conservative party that Germany deserves to have, if anyone can do it at all, they have the principles, culture and know-how to. Not saying they are perfect, but they are a darn side less confused than the others...
In the meanwhile, all we can do is play some Lou Reed in appreciation of the epic mess:
Ps.: The Tories in the UK are only one election away from this situation as well, maybe even less. Not much holds them together anymore on the principle side, the clear blue water has turned quite muddy in the past 20 years :(
Single parents statistics and a new model of family law
Gingerbread has a handy list of statistics about single parents.
Nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of households with dependent children are single parent families, and there are 1.9 million single parents in Britain today.
There are 3 million children living in a single parent household, 24 per cent of all dependent children
Single parents are predominantly women, although 8 per cent of single parents are fathers. Single fathers are more likely to be widowed than single mothers (12 per cent of single fathers are widowed, compared with 5 per cent of single mothers), and their children tend to be older.
Whilst they think that safety lies in numbers and use the proliferation of brokenness as a reasoning why we should give failures equal rights, I just see that any single parent family is an awful hack that brings all sorts of problems, not only does the adult get a horrible life full of very hard work, but the kids (especially if they are singletons) have a very lonely childhood and are not socialised fully.
Most of these people have life-long bonding issues and lack the social tools to experience a traditional marriage -- like stone age settlers, they stay with someone for a while and when too much garbage accumulates, they move on, leaving their mess behind. At the same time, they expect to move into a perfect relationship, they don't want to invest into building something (and don't know how to either). Culturally, they are completely different people to family folk.
Result: Most of those people will end up being single parents, since this is all they know -- a marriage also teaches kids how to be married by observation, over nearly 2 decades. Without this long training and the benefit of a tradition that sets out a proven framework, people have to go back to first principles to make things work, and the result is aall too often failure.
And that is before one adds the high amount of sociopaths into the equation, whose kids have an even harder time, because there is no second family adult to temper the behaviour of the first one.
Anyway, there are at least 3 million kids out there who have a broken, incomplete childhood -- no child chooses to be fatherless or have their mom at work all day, and many kids end up with crazy adults in charge and without family to protect or advise them. Charities like Gingerbread never point this out(nor does anyone else), because doing so would admit that single parent families are a total catastrophe for children.
So, to the point of this post, in essence, the problem we have is not enough children, and of the few we have, we have too many that are set up to fail before they even are born, and we have too many people who have no idea how to conduct a relationship or how to parent. How long will such a self-sabotaging society produce enough excellent people to keep the show running for everyone else?
Can it be fixed? Maybe, but we would need a different model, one that preserves the concept of romance but also changes marriage from a contract between two adults (which is no longer is, more like a license to annoy, pester and impoverish) into something completely different -- a contract between two adults and the children they have created, with the adults being on one side and the kids being on the other, having claim onto the adults.
How would such a contract look? I'll write this up for my next post.
Whilst they think that safety lies in numbers and use the proliferation of brokenness as a reasoning why we should give failures equal rights, I just see that any single parent family is an awful hack that brings all sorts of problems, not only does the adult get a horrible life full of very hard work, but the kids (especially if they are singletons) have a very lonely childhood and are not socialised fully.
Most of these people have life-long bonding issues and lack the social tools to experience a traditional marriage -- like stone age settlers, they stay with someone for a while and when too much garbage accumulates, they move on, leaving their mess behind. At the same time, they expect to move into a perfect relationship, they don't want to invest into building something (and don't know how to either). Culturally, they are completely different people to family folk.
Result: Most of those people will end up being single parents, since this is all they know -- a marriage also teaches kids how to be married by observation, over nearly 2 decades. Without this long training and the benefit of a tradition that sets out a proven framework, people have to go back to first principles to make things work, and the result is aall too often failure.
And that is before one adds the high amount of sociopaths into the equation, whose kids have an even harder time, because there is no second family adult to temper the behaviour of the first one.
Anyway, there are at least 3 million kids out there who have a broken, incomplete childhood -- no child chooses to be fatherless or have their mom at work all day, and many kids end up with crazy adults in charge and without family to protect or advise them. Charities like Gingerbread never point this out(nor does anyone else), because doing so would admit that single parent families are a total catastrophe for children.
So, to the point of this post, in essence, the problem we have is not enough children, and of the few we have, we have too many that are set up to fail before they even are born, and we have too many people who have no idea how to conduct a relationship or how to parent. How long will such a self-sabotaging society produce enough excellent people to keep the show running for everyone else?
Can it be fixed? Maybe, but we would need a different model, one that preserves the concept of romance but also changes marriage from a contract between two adults (which is no longer is, more like a license to annoy, pester and impoverish) into something completely different -- a contract between two adults and the children they have created, with the adults being on one side and the kids being on the other, having claim onto the adults.
How would such a contract look? I'll write this up for my next post.
Yeehaw!
This weekends' must hear: The Log of a Cowboy.
"The Log of a Cowboy is an account of a five-month drive of 3,000 cattle from Brownsville, Texas, to Montana in 1882 along the Great Western Cattle Trail. Although the book is fiction, it is firmly based on Adams's own experiences on the trail, and it is considered by many to be the best account of cowboy life in literature. Adams was disgusted by the unrealistic cowboy fiction being published in his day; The Log of a Cowboy was his response. It is still in print, and even modern reviewers consider it a compelling classic. The Chicago Herald said: "As a narrative of cowboy life, Andy Adams' book is clearly the real thing. It carries its own certificate of authentic first-hand experience on every page." (Introduction by wikipedia)"
If that is too realistic and you desire a pukka cowboy swashbuckler, there is always The Bear Creek Collection and if that is not enough, The Bear Creek Collection 2. From the blurb:
"Breckinridge Elkins is the roughest, toughest, fastest-shootin’, hardest-fightin’ feller in the Bear Creek settlement, and probably in the entire Humbolt Mountains. As he travels further from home, he single-handedly takes on outlaws, settles (and starts) feuds and tries his hand at romancing the girls. He also discovers a lot of strange customs among other folks, such as building houses out of boards and wearing clothes that ain’t buckskins. Set in Nevada during the late 1800’s, this collection of stories is a great rollicking romp through the American frontier as seen through the eyes of one of the most enjoyable characters created in the history of tall tales." (Summary by RK Wilcox)
And for something inbetween the two offerings, there is of course Buffalo Bill's memoirs: "The Life of Honorable William F. Cody ".
Cracking open my Raspberry beer....
This was a belgian kit called 'Brewferm Framboise' and... it's delicious. I could brew this from scratch, but messing around with fruit in beer has never been lucky for me, besides, this is ever so easy and quick to make, mix, ferment, transfer, prime, bottle, beer done. And to be honest, the fruit flavour masks any tin taste (if there is some at all) anyway. Of course, it goes best with a proper drinking song:
Toddler attacks fox (extra extra!)
...another Daily Wail classic(tm)
The self-hating comments are just sickening, one gets the feeling that even had the toddler been totally mullered, the crowd would've cheered for the fox here.
I guess the problem is that foxes are more than just predators --this is foremost a political and class issue, and that the reality that foxes are not as nice as the cartoons suggest is causing a lot of people a serious pain in their dogma which they fought to establish so hard for over the years against their archenemy, the toffs and the country bumpkins and their hated foxhunt.
Even the parents of the unlucky toddler state they don't want the fox to die -- it's as if a dose of forgiveness could magically make the event unhappen, and the animal had not learnt that biting humans is OK -- totally oblivious to the fact that foxes learn most of their hunting behaviour.
My hunch is that fox bites are quite common, but people tend to view them as trivial. So expect a lot more fox-bites-child news to come up as it's now on the news radar.
For those who like their math, here are some papers that should give you a good idea of the bad things that'll happen if rabies ever takes hold in London:
MODELING CONTROL OF RABIES OUTBREAKS IN RED FOX POPULATIONS TO ...
http://www.diss.fu-berlin.de/diss/receiv/FUDISS_thesis_000000000061?lang=en
And if it ever does, DEFRA's contingency plan is simple: a cull of every warmblooded animal there is in the vicinity, no appeal, not even a current rabies vaccination or keeping it exclusively indoors will save your pet(s).
Oh and it doesn't have to be an accidental release either, this basically is a huge biosecurity risk just waiting be be explored. And as an aside, I hope that the bitten toddlers have been protectively vaccinated against Rabies as a precaution. Because by the time they show symptoms (1-3 month) it'll be too late for them.
The self-hating comments are just sickening, one gets the feeling that even had the toddler been totally mullered, the crowd would've cheered for the fox here.
I guess the problem is that foxes are more than just predators --this is foremost a political and class issue, and that the reality that foxes are not as nice as the cartoons suggest is causing a lot of people a serious pain in their dogma which they fought to establish so hard for over the years against their archenemy, the toffs and the country bumpkins and their hated foxhunt.
Even the parents of the unlucky toddler state they don't want the fox to die -- it's as if a dose of forgiveness could magically make the event unhappen, and the animal had not learnt that biting humans is OK -- totally oblivious to the fact that foxes learn most of their hunting behaviour.
My hunch is that fox bites are quite common, but people tend to view them as trivial. So expect a lot more fox-bites-child news to come up as it's now on the news radar.
For those who like their math, here are some papers that should give you a good idea of the bad things that'll happen if rabies ever takes hold in London:
MODELING CONTROL OF RABIES OUTBREAKS IN RED FOX POPULATIONS TO ...
http://www.diss.fu-berlin.de/diss/receiv/FUDISS_thesis_000000000061?lang=en
And if it ever does, DEFRA's contingency plan is simple: a cull of every warmblooded animal there is in the vicinity, no appeal, not even a current rabies vaccination or keeping it exclusively indoors will save your pet(s).
Oh and it doesn't have to be an accidental release either, this basically is a huge biosecurity risk just waiting be be explored. And as an aside, I hope that the bitten toddlers have been protectively vaccinated against Rabies as a precaution. Because by the time they show symptoms (1-3 month) it'll be too late for them.
Drugs -- How the Right lost the youth culture to the Left
The Right has long given up attracting young people, and instead relies on them growing up and coming round of their own accord, eventually, if they haven't totally internalised the leftard brainwash by then. Even if they are not completely plugged into the lefty matrix, it often takes a long while and much intellectual effort to question every cherished belief one has held from first principles, and so, a lot of naturally conservative people end up as leftards out of a life-long habit. [1]
This is a huge mistake tactically, as it also does nothing to challenge the many misconceptions about life that young folk have, and so all sorts of myth perpetuate themselves and well-meaning kids end up wearing Che t-shirts and supporting terrorists, not realising what kind of evil they deem to be cool.
Go to any concert or similar event, and you find that ideologically, the entire scene is firmly in the hand of the Left, who get to spout their nonsense unchallenged and infest young people's mind with their slogans and persistent modus ponens abuse.
Why is that so?
Well, young people love taking drugs.
What the left does, is that it uses drug culture to promote itself and left politicians forever promise our kids that they will legalise Marijunana. Obama got many votes for this stunt, and it's very amusing to see my lefty friends (yes, I hang out with the enemy) realising they have been stiffed, in the same way that Labour stiffed the kids over here when they were in power.
Would you as a young person go and hang out with oldies who bore you with silly horror stories about the evils of dope which you know to be lies? Of course not, even though most of the other stuff they'd have to teach you is actually quite sane. Kids hear the first lie, and from that they extrapolate that adults are mad liars, and that most of what they also have to say must be equally crazy.
Ironically, the Left doesn't accommodate the kids either and of course has no plans to legalise any drugs, but because they tolerate the drug culture and have embraced it in their propaganda and PR methods, they get to peddle their ideology much easier, because people who are sane on the drugs issues must of course be totally correct on everything else they say. This is the one of the most epic salesman tricks ever!
So that is why the Right does not have a youth culture to speak of, and no easy way of connecting to the majority of young people.
The solution? Lift the unconservative ban on drugs and spend the saved money on education instead(since drugs are quasi-legal anyway and free will is the only cure), and the Left will very quickly lose their monopoly on the young, at which point the Right can start to do proper youth work and begin to reach the parts that our currently loudly shrieking nutty nannies never will.
[1] Take for example Che's true history as a political mass murderer. Ever educated a lefty peacenik of the grim reality here? If you can get them to listen at all, when they do, it's worse than telling a kid that Santa does not exist. They go through embarrassment at being sold a lie, then anger at themselves for being gullible and getting their carefully guarded moral integrity tainted by sympathy for a killer, and so on. It's not a great experience at all, and a lot of people prefer not to think about reality because it's too painful to question one's entire integrity. As the Irish man would say: I wouldn't start from here... So, it really is better to catch them young!
This is a huge mistake tactically, as it also does nothing to challenge the many misconceptions about life that young folk have, and so all sorts of myth perpetuate themselves and well-meaning kids end up wearing Che t-shirts and supporting terrorists, not realising what kind of evil they deem to be cool.
Go to any concert or similar event, and you find that ideologically, the entire scene is firmly in the hand of the Left, who get to spout their nonsense unchallenged and infest young people's mind with their slogans and persistent modus ponens abuse.
Why is that so?
Well, young people love taking drugs.
What the left does, is that it uses drug culture to promote itself and left politicians forever promise our kids that they will legalise Marijunana. Obama got many votes for this stunt, and it's very amusing to see my lefty friends (yes, I hang out with the enemy) realising they have been stiffed, in the same way that Labour stiffed the kids over here when they were in power.
Would you as a young person go and hang out with oldies who bore you with silly horror stories about the evils of dope which you know to be lies? Of course not, even though most of the other stuff they'd have to teach you is actually quite sane. Kids hear the first lie, and from that they extrapolate that adults are mad liars, and that most of what they also have to say must be equally crazy.
Ironically, the Left doesn't accommodate the kids either and of course has no plans to legalise any drugs, but because they tolerate the drug culture and have embraced it in their propaganda and PR methods, they get to peddle their ideology much easier, because people who are sane on the drugs issues must of course be totally correct on everything else they say. This is the one of the most epic salesman tricks ever!
So that is why the Right does not have a youth culture to speak of, and no easy way of connecting to the majority of young people.
The solution? Lift the unconservative ban on drugs and spend the saved money on education instead(since drugs are quasi-legal anyway and free will is the only cure), and the Left will very quickly lose their monopoly on the young, at which point the Right can start to do proper youth work and begin to reach the parts that our currently loudly shrieking nutty nannies never will.
[1] Take for example Che's true history as a political mass murderer. Ever educated a lefty peacenik of the grim reality here? If you can get them to listen at all, when they do, it's worse than telling a kid that Santa does not exist. They go through embarrassment at being sold a lie, then anger at themselves for being gullible and getting their carefully guarded moral integrity tainted by sympathy for a killer, and so on. It's not a great experience at all, and a lot of people prefer not to think about reality because it's too painful to question one's entire integrity. As the Irish man would say: I wouldn't start from here... So, it really is better to catch them young!
Thylacosmilus with Beisshemmung...
Our favorite Ambush Predator appears to have Beisshemmung today and that is my take on her predicament:
And your point would be?
Lots of people would not know what to do -- I guess you'd crack open the cat food for it eh?
And not all foxes are wimps either, besides, there is *always* the possibility that it's rabid, especially with this kind of behaviour.
All it takes is some idiot to smuggle their pooch to France and back, and have it bitten by a rabid fox, dog, rat or frog... and the incubation time is 1-3 month, and the UK will have rabies and DEFRA will cull every pet they'll find (check on their emergency plans, it's grim reading)
So far, the UK has been very lucky, in fact, it's the 10th world wonder that rabies has not found it's way here yet. When it does, you'll have a town full of rabid foxes within a very short period of time -- people start trapping and shooting them now.
--
What is it with the Brits and foxes? Either they totally go over the top and hunt in the most disgusting, unwaidmaennisch way ever, or they mollycoddle the varmint like it's some long lost brother... Die spinnen die Briten :-D
And your point would be?
Lots of people would not know what to do -- I guess you'd crack open the cat food for it eh?
And not all foxes are wimps either, besides, there is *always* the possibility that it's rabid, especially with this kind of behaviour.
All it takes is some idiot to smuggle their pooch to France and back, and have it bitten by a rabid fox, dog, rat or frog... and the incubation time is 1-3 month, and the UK will have rabies and DEFRA will cull every pet they'll find (check on their emergency plans, it's grim reading)
So far, the UK has been very lucky, in fact, it's the 10th world wonder that rabies has not found it's way here yet. When it does, you'll have a town full of rabid foxes within a very short period of time -- people start trapping and shooting them now.
--
What is it with the Brits and foxes? Either they totally go over the top and hunt in the most disgusting, unwaidmaennisch way ever, or they mollycoddle the varmint like it's some long lost brother... Die spinnen die Briten :-D
Who wants to be a child forever?
Dr. Helen dissing some poor girl who wants a man, not a boy and I got this to say:
Other than calling losers who don't want to bond 'douchebags', the lady who wrote the letter is spot on -- she wants a man for life, not a fuckbuddy for the summer. She is right to feel entitled to a soul mate who is an adult.
Yes, there are nasty (wo)men out there who use the broken laws to rip (wo)men and kids off, if they didn't have that option, these people would be evil in other ways. In general, people are not bad because they can get away with it, but they are bad because ...(drumroll) they are bad.
And if you choose such a bad person as your life partner because you cannot be bothered to look at them properly and get to know them, or because you're greedy and want looks and/or money and let your sexual organs override your brains, then by definition, bad things will happen to you -- as the saying goes: you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
Ideally we'd all like people to be able to have proper relationships that last a lifetime, and we all complain bitterly a lot because so many people no longer manage to behave themselves in a way that makes this possible. In fact, this lament is a central theme to this veritable blog...!
Wanting revenge on (wo)men in general and recommending that people start stealing decent folks life time as a revenge for what another (wo)man did to them is not a recipe for success.
Nor is paranoia -- life is tough, there are many people out there who thieve, and part of life is to be aware who you're spending your time with, be it spouses, friends or even colleagues. Choose wisely, don't be afraid to send someone on their way gently and kindly the moment you see structural problems in their personality -- learn to love yourself, then you can love others. Above all, don't take on basket cases, there is a reason why those people hate themselves like they do, and it's up to them to fix themselves, you cannot help such folk.
Dr. Helen, we already have enough soul-cripples of both genders and all sexual persuasions who cannot bond properly with others or behave decently, so why add to the general mayhem by telling people to not bother because everyone is going to rip them off anyway?
What we need is role models -- successfully bonded couples teaching others how to live life-long love -- our culture is totally devoid of good examples for people to copy, there is no social or online scene either that supports couples either.
Complaining is important because without being aware that something is broken, it cannot be fixed, but only solutions are doing the job in the end to solve the problems.
Other than calling losers who don't want to bond 'douchebags', the lady who wrote the letter is spot on -- she wants a man for life, not a fuckbuddy for the summer. She is right to feel entitled to a soul mate who is an adult.
Yes, there are nasty (wo)men out there who use the broken laws to rip (wo)men and kids off, if they didn't have that option, these people would be evil in other ways. In general, people are not bad because they can get away with it, but they are bad because ...(drumroll) they are bad.
And if you choose such a bad person as your life partner because you cannot be bothered to look at them properly and get to know them, or because you're greedy and want looks and/or money and let your sexual organs override your brains, then by definition, bad things will happen to you -- as the saying goes: you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
Ideally we'd all like people to be able to have proper relationships that last a lifetime, and we all complain bitterly a lot because so many people no longer manage to behave themselves in a way that makes this possible. In fact, this lament is a central theme to this veritable blog...!
Wanting revenge on (wo)men in general and recommending that people start stealing decent folks life time as a revenge for what another (wo)man did to them is not a recipe for success.
Nor is paranoia -- life is tough, there are many people out there who thieve, and part of life is to be aware who you're spending your time with, be it spouses, friends or even colleagues. Choose wisely, don't be afraid to send someone on their way gently and kindly the moment you see structural problems in their personality -- learn to love yourself, then you can love others. Above all, don't take on basket cases, there is a reason why those people hate themselves like they do, and it's up to them to fix themselves, you cannot help such folk.
Dr. Helen, we already have enough soul-cripples of both genders and all sexual persuasions who cannot bond properly with others or behave decently, so why add to the general mayhem by telling people to not bother because everyone is going to rip them off anyway?
What we need is role models -- successfully bonded couples teaching others how to live life-long love -- our culture is totally devoid of good examples for people to copy, there is no social or online scene either that supports couples either.
Complaining is important because without being aware that something is broken, it cannot be fixed, but only solutions are doing the job in the end to solve the problems.
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