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 :)
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)
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