| View previous topic :: View next topic |
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
 |
|
|
The Whips Office has issued new advice to MP's being asked by MSM for their opinion about the Prime Minister. The long standing one about wisdom, gravaman and the need to stand behind our leader at this particularly fraught time in our island history can be supplemented with "It's too late to change him now" without incurring adverse action.
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
|
Many people wonder why the African Union is is so ineffective. It might start with the fact that ninety per cent of the financing of the AU comes from outside Africa. A bit like NATO really.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
South Korea's doctors are on strike just like our own. The causes are the same -- more money -- but the respective rationales are slightly different. South Korean doctors are among the highest paid in the world but there is a shortage of them. And it will only get worse because the population is getting older. So the government wants to open a coupla new medical schools and train two thousand extra doctors every year.
Oh no you won't, say the doctors, going on strike to prevent it.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
We discovered another juicy tidbit from the enquiry into the blood transfusion scandal. The parents of the afflicted children did at least miss one bullet.
One of the symptoms of haemophilia is bruise marks on the body so when parents first took their kid into casualty, after being infected with the disease from an American 'junky' blood transfusion, the doctors in casualty were baffled. It couldn't be haemophilia because the child would have been diagnosed with this at or soon after birth. That only left one alternative: parental abuse.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
1. Orthodoxy always slashes interest rates when it wants to boost the economy because companies need cheap money to expand..
2. I keep screaming you should raise interest rates when you want to boost the economy because there are always far more lenders than borrowers.
3. If you give companies cheap money you will only get speculative investment (Gresham's Law).
4. Japan has operated a zero per cent bank rate for the last twenty-five years because their economy is so sluggish.
5. Japan has had a zero growth rate for twenty-five years.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
|
|
|
|
|
There is plenty of money, returns could be as good as elsewhere in Europe, business regulation is fairish, but expanding will often require new build and you have a snowball's chance in hell of getting land and planning permision.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
| She was considered a slut, a hussy, whatever... and she survived decades of that... but Monica Lewinsky has signed a deal to promote a sustainable LA fashion brand Business Matters BBC World Service |
Can I stop you there? I'm an extreme libertarian when it comes to sex but I would have thought, by the standards of accepted etymology, giving the boss blowjobs with his wife just down the corridor would be widely considered to be somewhere on the slut/hussy continuum. But that's not the point.
Nobody thought Ms Lewinsky was a slut, hussy or any other suchlike derogatory term. Just a nice kid doing what everyone does in the presence of leaders of the free world, putting out. Tony Blair did it with both Clinton and Bush. As to whether the now middle-aged Monica is a good style guide for fashionable but sustainable clothing, I remain agnostic.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
| Public funding of the arts is coming under intense pressure. The Birmingham Repertory Theatre for example is having a hundred per cent of its local authority grant removed over the next two years. Here's a a clip of one its current offerings... Kirsty Wark Newsnight. |
And a very professional and vibrant Bollywood-style song and dance it was too. But you couldn't help reflecting that (a) the BRT putting it on and (b) Newsnight selecting it, was part of the reason why the public funding of the arts is not going to get the broad masses hitting the streets in protest any time soon.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
|
|
|
|
| Mick Harper wrote: | | Public funding of the arts is coming under intense pressure. The Birmingham Repertory Theatre for example is having a hundred per cent of its local authority grant removed over the next two years. Here's a a clip of one its current offerings... Kirsty Wark Newsnight. |
And a very professional and vibrant Bollywood-style song and dance it was too. But you couldn't help reflecting that (a) the BRT putting it on and (b) Newsnight selecting it, was part of the reason why the public funding of the arts is not going to get the broad masses hitting the streets in protest any time soon. |
Arts funding has always been given on the paternalistic basis that it is good for all, good in itself, and that all art is also for the masses, so a bit of safe Brummie Bangra is a good selection, to garner support. Of course it's only much needed cover for the subsidy of elitist art, which is very often both bad and unpopular.
There is nothing wrong in this of course, as this cover (careful ignoral is that arts funders cannot anticpate what is good or popular) is rational and vital, as by "the law of averages" you will need to subsidise quite a lot of bad elitist art, exhibtions, shows, films etc to eventually come up with the odd piece of genuine brilliance, which will then become massively popular, and makes folks a lot of money.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
| Arts funding has always been given on the paternalistic basis that it is good for all, good in itself, |
I don't mind this so long as the basic proprieties are observed. In fact it is essential to any notion of a civilised society.
| and that all art is also for the masses |
This is obviously untrue. However, art which is for the masses does not ordinarily require public funding.
| so a bit of safe Brummie Bangra is a good selection, to garner support. |
My objection is that it wasn't. It's just modish multiculturalism. Did they really think the Asian masses would flock in?
| Of course it's only much needed cover for the subsidy of elitist art, which is very often both bad and unpopular. |
That was my objection, it wasn't cover at all. There is no correlation between bad and unpopular in elitist art though it can hardly be popular, can it?
| There is nothing wrong in this of course, as this cover (careful ignoral is that arts funders cannot anticpate what is good or popular) is rational and vital, as by "the law of averages" you will need to subsidise quite a lot of bad elitist art, exhibtions, shows, films etc to eventually come up with the odd piece of genuine brilliance, which will then become massively popular, and makes folks a lot of money. |
My gripe is that art is no longer in the hands of artists but arts administrators. Generally speaking 'the arts' have lost all confidence in Britain. My assumption is that this is because artists have been subsumed in the general victim-culture malaise.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
I haven't followed this gender-reassignment business with any great attention--I find the whole thing too yucky. But the Cass Report and the ensuing argies on the box have allowed me to come to some (familiar) conclusions.
1. Medical problems to do with hermaphrodism and allied conditions are quite rare and can be dealt with without fuss.
2. For some reason teenagers with depressive problems over their sexual preferences have been encouraged to seek gender reassignment as the solution.
3. This is a totally bananas over the top policy as it will radically alter their entire life and probably won't solve their underlying problems.
4. Anyone who points this out gets roundly condemned for being a fascist and allied conditions.
5. It looks as though Britain is gradually coming to its senses and is keeping the 'gender-reassignment enthusiasts' out of the NHS and making the procedure unavailable for non-adults.
6. Adults can go in for reassignment to their hearts' content but will have to pay for it since it is essentially a lifestyle choice rather than a medical problem.
7. But since 'kids must be able to reassign if they want to' has become a badge of identity for the victim-culture brigade we can expect the row to continue indefinitely.
8. Blimey I've only managed to get up to seven. Shows how yucky the whole thing is.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
The Library Index 
FAQ 
Search
Register
Profile 
Log in to check your private messages 
Log in 
