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The Tom Sawyer Principle (Politics)
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Mick Harper
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I don't envy God. With the Orthodox Church splitting into Moscow and Kiev factions, it's make Your mind up time for the old boy. I don't normally take it upon myself to advise Him (He works his side of the street, I work mine) but if I were Him I wouldn't take Vladimir Putin's new-found faith all that seriously. There's an element of political calculation to it, I reckon. Just a nod to the wise.

Nod to the all-wise in fact. Putin might want to remember that.
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Mick Harper
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What I spend most of my time doing is clumping up the stairs to answer the door. "We've come to check your..." I've given up paying attention to what. Fire alarms, smoke alarms, burglar alarms, lighting, decor, structure, access to common parts, roof, doors, windows, flood precaution, gas, electrics, on and on it goes. I've given up asking for ID so half the time it's probably "... your upstairs neighbour's collection of antique silver salt-shakers now they're away on a safety-in-the-home refresher course."

The point I'm making is that I live in a supersafe house that could be left to its own devices for all eternity without coming to the least harm but somebody out there is paying for a small army of people to make sure it stays that way. Except they aren't. It's a well known (despite just being made up by me) principle that installing things, testing things, changing things is the prime cause of things going catastrophically wrong. How often have we heard, "It is believed that workmen on the site may have left...."

So why is it not just happening all the time but increasing all the time? That's easy. It's not us that's paying for it. If we were we'd soon put a stop to it. But everyone in this house pays a rent fixed by a Rent Tribunal and none of us pay taxes because we're all officially below the poverty line. It's not the landlord paying for it either, they're a charity and it all comes out of some nameless but bottomless pit.

It's you that's paying for it, suckers.
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Grant



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Parasitism. We all do it if we can. It’s actually very hard to make a real difference, to actually genuinely improve things. Much easier to introduce a pointless rule and wander round with a clipboard.
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Mick Harper
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Yes, that's a good one, 'parasitism'. It happens in all large organisations but comes to full flower when it is a state-funded one and there's no-one to complain about the cost. And fullest flower of all when it's health-and-safety and complaining about the cost means you want people to die.

In fact, now I come to think about it, we need people with clipboards to count the number of people that might die.
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Mick Harper
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The Spy Who Died Twice (Channel 4)

Good grief, when is the penny going to drop? There are ministerial posts that are sensitive from a security point of view and there are those that aren't. The latter outnumber the former by a very wide margin. John Stonehouse was appointed to four that were and none that weren't

Minister of Aviation
Minister in the Colonial Office
Minister in the Dept of Technology
Postmaster-General


The chances of this happening by chance are hundreds of billons to one (o.n.o.) Who appointed Stonehouse to them all? Harold Wilson.

Then a Czech defector fingers two Labour MPs, the completely harmless Will Whatsit and the extremely effective Stonehouse. Wilson immediately throws one to the wolves and protects the other with extraordinary tenacity. Guess which? He even makes a statement in the House all but exonerating Stonehouse which he must have known was ridiculous. He even lets him stand again as an MP! He's still at it in 1976 after the Stonehouse faked death and return to Britain where he went to extraordinary lengths to get Mrs Thatcher onside though the Tories were baying for a security enquiry. Meanwhile Stonehouse gets seven years for fraud etc but not a word about security matters.

Why am I telling you this in an AE forum? None of it was mentioned in the programme! Careful ignoral or what? It even gave starring parts to two people, Geoffrey Robertson and David Leigh, who have been instrumental in the Harold Wilson conspiracy theory i.e. that him being a commie spy is a right wing conspiracy theory.

I've always been a bit agnostic about Harold Wilson, KGB agent, but not any more.
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Grant



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Always been suspicious about the rumours that he suddenly retired when he realised that his enormous brain was deteriorating with Alzheimer’s. It still took him another 19 years to die.

My brain is deteriorating but like everyone else I’m going to wing it for as long as I can
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Mick Harper
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My brain gets better and better even though, by normal standards, there is precious little room for improvement.
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Mick Harper
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Diplomacy 101

1. Russia advances further into Ukraine
2. If the West supplies long range missiles we will advance further into Ukraine. (Sergei Lavrov)
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Grant



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Fascinating article in Unz (Nazi web site for us fanatics) which says that the billions pledged to Ukraine by Biden will be split thus:
Replenishing US weapons stockpile - 8.7 billion
USEUCOM (US tactical advice) - 3.9 billion
Global food chain - 5 billion
Unspecified economic assistance- 9 billion
Help for refugees -900 million

In other words most of the money will disappear into the US military industrial political complex and politician’s pockets.

Meanwhile Putin continues to take over Ukraine street by street.
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Mick Harper
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It ain't where the money's going to that interests me so much as where it's coming from. Every time 'we go over to Washington' there's somebody on the White House lawn pledging three billion to this good cause, one point seven billion to that bad cause. And each time I do a quick bit of mental arithmetic and think to myself, "Did she just pledge every family in America to have to pay a thousand bucks to a cause they've never heard of?" Not just now and again, like three times a week.

I was kinda getting the same impression from Sonny Sushak but with 148 MP's voting no confidence in his master, that won't be going on for much longer. And on a historical note, I was the first person inside the Westminster bubble to tip Zeinab Baddawi for the top job. (Remember?) Now they're all doing it, so I'm moving on.
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Mick Harper
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I'd say Penny Mordaunt is the dark horse.
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Mick Harper
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Following President Maduro's visit it has been announced that direct flights between Teheran and Caracas will be inaugurated to 'encourage tourism'.

Since not a single person in either country would want a holiday in the other in a month of Sundays (Saturdays in Iran) this is clearly a joint secret police operation to identify people wanting out. As the planes will have to refuel, dissidents think they can apply for asylum at the stopover. Little do they know these are Potemkin planes.

It won't work in Venezuela though. Everyone knows there's not enough fuel in Caracas to get an aeroplane off the ground. Venezuela having bigger oil reserves than Iran notwithstanding, President Maduro explained to a clearly puzzled cleric.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Mick Harper wrote:

It won't work in Venezuela though. Everyone knows there's not enough fuel in Caracas to get an aeroplane off the ground. Venezuela having bigger oil reserves than Iran notwithstanding, President Maduro explained to a clearly puzzled cleric.


For some reason we haven't heard the leftist refrain about the war in Russia is really about the oil, yet Russia like Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, etc is looking like a "Petro State", ie under Putin it has become centred on exports of oil and gas, and power has become increasingly concentrated around him and some of his friendly oligharchs. The whole economy, its reserves, currency, exports etc, are now dependent on oil and gas prices.

The flailing and failing petrostate analysis, just like that of the Banana republic, might have an element of truth to it.
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Grant



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There is no logic in the “USA is only interested in the oil” hypothesis. If you are lucky enough to have oil you will want to sell it. Otherwise, what’s the point in having it? Why would America fight for what they can just buy?

The real reason? The USA is interested in maintaining world leadership and the mighty dollar, but Russia plus China plus India will be the world’s powerhouse soon. Russia will supply the raw material, China will make nice things and India and the rest of Asia will buy them. And we will have to pay for them in yuans or rubles. If the neocons can smash Russia they might be able to stop the creation of this trading bloc.
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Mick Harper
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Remind me whose side I'm supposed to be on.
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