I love my neighbourhood

Yes indeedy, I've got the coolest neighbors. First a jihadi and now a Neo-Nazi.

The common thread between these two characters (well, except an ideology of hate, and I bet they hate some of the same people and each other!), is that they've been arrested over what they've written and published.

Clearly I don't want either one of the venom-spewing-nitwits in my neighbourhood, driving down property prices and causing trouble. But I have been a little bit disturbed by some aspects of the Babar Ahmad case and I'm not entirely clear what exactly the Neo-Nazi guy did, though he's pled guilty to "stirring up racial hatred".

Can you believe it? That was the actual charge - stirring up racial hatred. And the Labour Government wants to make it an offense to "stir up religious hatred" too. (See my previous post on that) This isn't the same as inciting violence, this is just...well, I'm not sure what it is. And I've read the Home Office guidance on stirring up - which sadly is no longer on their site.

Here's what they have instead:

Stamping out religious hate crime

In 2004, the government introduced an offence of ‘incitement to religious hatred’ to protect against extremists stirring up hatred because of people’s particular religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs.

Examples of religious hate crime include:

• display of written material or broadcast of images likely to stir up racial or religious hatred
• religiously aggravated damage and assault

If you feel that you have been a victim of religious hate crime you should contact the police immediately.

Which is slightly worrying since I wasn't aware that this legislation had passed. This really frightens me, because I don't know what this means, and anyone could take offense or feel that I was stirring up hatred, I guess.

Brush with fame at Richmond Deer Park

On our excursions at Richmond Deer Park yesterday, we went to the cafe/restaurant. We arrived about 2pm and because it was unseasonably warm there were probably a lot more people in the park then they expected. Much of the food had run-out by the time we got there, so a lot of the people in the cafe were sort of stumbling about trying to choose something tasty.

One of the people who looked like he was having a hard time deciding was a man in a wheelchair. I went past him as he stared somewhat blankly at the picked-over cakes. But he soon rallied and was behind me in line trying to help his daughters choose something from the hot meals (cabbage soup, fish and chips with a side of turnips, or ham steak and pineapple).

I tried not to stare at him, but he looked awfully familiar, and sounded familiar, too. I didn't want to look too much, because what is the etiquette for staring at someone who might be a minor celebrity who also happens to be in a wheelchair? I couldn't remember his name, but I wondered if he was the BBC reporter who was shot and paralysed in a terror incident in Saudi Arabia last year and whom I'd seen on tv the night before receiving a medal from the Queen. (Maybe along with the medal he got some Royal Parks cafeteria gift certificates!)

So I looked him up on the Internet, and I do believe that it was Frank Gardner. And coincidentally he had a piece on BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House this morning, a rather moving piece on those who had survived the 7/7 attacks, some of them horrendously injured, as they go on with their lives 100 days after the London Transport murders.

Unseasonably warm

It's been mostly lovely weather this October, better perhaps than July and August (except of course for the day we had transport problems) This morning the BBC announced that the temperature would be up in "double digits", which always confuses me because I still think in Farenheit (and even in Celsius that doesn't make much sense, I mean 10 is OK I think, but 99 Celsius would be pretty ridiculous)

Anyway, to make the most of it, the Vol-in-Law and I went, again, to Richmond Deer Park. It's pretty much a fall back weekend activity for us, but it is a really nice park.

On our way in, we saw this sign: I'm not sure how legible it is, but essentially it's the notice of the annual deer cull. I see that they are shooting the deer at night, which is awfully considerate of us regular park users.


I reckon they must be spot-lighting the deer. But hey, it's the Queen's deer, she can do what she likes with them, I guess. I would be curious as to what criteria they are using to cull the deer. Do they particularly go after bucks, does, little 'uns, ones that look tasty? My suspicion is that they shoot the less human-shy ones as a matter or policy, because hardly any deer are the least bit friendly even when you have a tasty treat like a flapjack (oatmeal bar).

This one looks like a good trophy (if I were in to that kind of thing, but I'm not).


And these are awfully cute, too.




I did tell some of the deer "Stay away from the light, the light is not your friend." But I don't think they understood me.

We also saw a notice in the park telling us not to pick any of the fungi. We did see some amazing fairy tale looking mushrooms. Possibly just the kind of fungi that Snow White's evil stepmom put on her apple to make her sleep.

Stop the Left from Policing your mind

I just finished reading The New Thought Police: Inside the Left's Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds, by Tammy Bruce. (link to Amazon here)

The Vol-in-Law bought this book and read it and didn't think much of it. I've now read it and I have to say I have some mixed feelings about this book, too.

From her website biography, Tammy Bruce describes herself as:

...an openly gay, pro-choice, gun owning, pro-death penalty, voted-for-President Bush progressive feminist. She was drawn into feminist activism in the late 1980's to contribute to the ongoing effort to ensure safe and legal abortion for all women. Just two years after joining the National Organization for Women, and with a brand of feminism that places her somewhere between Donna Reed and Thelma and Louise, Ms. Bruce was elected president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW at the age of 27.

My gut feeling is that Ms Bruce is a bit of an iconoclast, she's someone who just naturally rages against the prevailing orthodoxy, and the orthodoxy she found herself in - being a native of native of Los Angeles and presumably hooked up with the gay subculture of the town - was pretty stridently "Left Liberal". When she kicked against that, she found herself a bit of a darling of the new Right Wing as she was probably one of the few lesbian, feminist commentators that were saying things that they liked. This became her niche, and she's played it for all its worth.

For example, on the back cover of the book, there's a Thomas Sowell blurb: "How many liberal lesbian writers have been praised by conservatives? Tammy Bruce may be the only one."

She goes after the Left pretty viciously, that's her schtick, (the title of this post is from the back cover of her book) and I'm guessing she's found it a pretty lucrative schtick. And of course she has a point, but only to a point.

I like her focus on the concept of Group Think - and how some things become unacceptable to say or think because of group dynamics. She certainly has plenty of examples of this from the Left, but few to none from the Right (she argues that it's not the theme of the book). Certainly the spread of "political correctness" is an example of how some on the Left have attempted to moderate or control what can or can not be said, and some individuals have paid a pretty high price for crossing the line.

In the culture I currently live in, I'm surrounded by many people who are extremely Leftist (I know people who are openly Socialist or Communist) and whose values and outlook don't always mesh with my relatively conservative upbringing in Tennessee. (Note I say relatively, my parents consider themselves liberals and vote Democrat.) The group whose Group Think is dominant emphasises redistributive taxation (although they advocate fairly ineffective policies), support of Unions, a laissez faire approach to personal morality, multiculturalism, are downright anti-marriage etc., etc. All the stuff that Tammy Bruce rails against in her books.

It's reasonably well known at my work that I'm involved with Democrats Abroad UK (which I didn't particularly want well known), but one of my big bosses teasingly said after the November elections in 2004 "I hope you voted." I said I did. "You didn't vote for George Bush, did you? If so, you can expect a P45." Ha ha. (A P45 is the British equivalent of a pink slip.)

I was absolutely furious. Yes, I don't like George Bush, and it's true I've never voted Republican in my life (I did once abstain in one race, because I supported the Republican candidate). But it's my business who I vote for, and if we're in the business of supporting democracy (which happens to be exactly what I get paid for), then we should respect people's democratic choices even if we strongly disagree with them.

I tell that story to relate how I can understand her irritation and fear of Leftist Group Think.

But she does her readers, I presume many of them Conservative, a grave disservice when she points only to the Left. The Right, and specifically the Christian Right, are very good at putting pressure on people not to speak up - e.g. on matters of religion, gender equality, patriotism, etc. What is this business of calling anyone who dissents on the War in Iraq unpatriotic if not a Rightist equivalent of political correctness? (Though I can't really accuse Right wing libertarians of this, bless 'em.) How many people are afraid to come out as atheists in the South? I've heard rumors that some people in Corporate America are afraid to admit they vote Democrat.

My whole life, and I suspect anyone who's a bit of a critical thinker has had the same experience, I've had to keep quiet about some of the things I think. Those who know me well know that I haven't been very good at that. But that's kind of beside the point. I've either felt pressure to keep quiet or paid the price for speaking up. In Tennessee, that was often speaking up against Right wing or Conservative Group Think, in the UK it's about not speaking up against the Left. (And I'm a bit better at keeping quiet, a mortgage is a great muzzle).

One thing I really didn't like about the book was her glee in shooting down liberal icons, presumably pandering to some of her readers. She takes some reasonable shots at Jesse Jackson, but she also goes after Martin Luther King, Jr because she says he dabbled with Communism in his youth. If he did, does that somehow lessen his non-violent activism or what he accomplished? She denounces Rosa Parks as an establishd activist (what's wrong with that?) and practically calls her a liar because of her statement: "I did not get on the bus to get arrested. I got on the bus to go home."

I imagine that Rosa Parks did get on that bus to go home but that she was fully aware that she might be arrested if she didn't give up her seat to a white person. Ms Parks's main aim wasn't to get arrested, she wasn't going to commit some real crime if she didn't get arrested unjustly for refusing to give up her seat. Where Ms Parks's activism comes in is that she was willing to go the distance, she was willing to fight through the courts.

Tammy Bruce seems to forget that the main wrong in that case was that laws were being applied to people differently because of their skin color. I'm afraid that this example is symptomatic of her anti-Left logic throughout. A more powerful argument would be to rail against all kinds of Group Think, but I don't guess that gets you paid slots on FoxNews.

Technorati tags: Tammy Bruce Book review Group Think Political correctness

An apple a day

The Vol-in-Law and I went to the grocery store today and there were some really good deals on apples and it's apple season. I like tart apples, crisp and not too sweet, full of apple flavor.

There were loads of different varieties in the store, Royal Gala, Delicious, Pink Lady, Braeburn and others, but I saw my favorite and announced my preference.

"I like Cox," I said.

Pause. Turn to Vol-in-Law. "Yes," he says. Cringe.

This happens every year.

Fun with the Sun

Gosh, you gotta love The Sun - that king of British tabloids, that sleazy red top rag.

I feel uncomfortable buying it, but I have to admit that I'm thrilled when I find a copy on the Tube. It's like the Weekly World News, the Enquirer and USA Today all rolled into one. It has pictures of nekkid girls on Page 3, when I first came to this country that kind of disturbed me, but it's all par for the course now. (If I'm riding on the Tube next to a young man, I like to keep it open to page 3 just long enough to get his attention, and then quickly flip it over to another page).

What I really love the Sun for is that it has the best advice column in the world Dear Deidre. Typical Q&A is:

Dear Deidre,

My partner is 23 and I am 21. We've been living together for 2 years, and we have one child together and I have a child from a previous relationship. Lately, he seems to be off sex and I feel really neglected.

I was round his Mum and Dad's recently and he and his Mum took the kids out to McDonalds. His Dad and I were watching tv and one thing led to another. Now we can't keep our hands off each other, but I feel guilty.

Should I tell my partner? Do you think he'll understand?

Lonesome in Woking
______

Dear Lonesome,

We all face temptation from time to time, but you must stop sleeping with your father-in-law. You need to ask yourself if who is helped by coming clean with your partner.

For more help phone my really expensive helpline Sleeping with your in-laws?

-Deidre.

Today's real gem on the Sun Online is the David Hasselhoff photo montage slide show.

Margaret Thatcher

...and no she's not dead.

It's her 80th birthday, celebrated with a gala reception with the Queen and various other political glitterati in attendance. But when I saw the headlines "Margaret Thatcher" on tv last night, I sort of assumed she had died. She hasn't been in the best of health recently, her husband died and her son has been in a spot of trouble.

Poor old Maggie. She's still such a figure of hate in the UK. Growing up in the US, she was a bit of hero figure, so I was really surprised by the level of hatred that many people on the Left have here for her. She sure did shake things up in the UK and she made a couple of big blunders, too - the extremely unpopular poll tax being one of them.

But the folks over at the Adam Smith Institute still love her.

halloween update

Well, I've finally decided on my Halloween costume. It was a struggle and in the end, I stole someone else's idea. Thanks to all those who commented on my previous post when I was idea-less.

I hardly ever go gruesome on Halloween, I usually go for something along a buxom wench theme.

This year still nothing icky, but I've decided to cross dress. It will be my first transvestite Halloween appearance. Should be interesting!

Here's some hints:

• it's from the 80s
• I get to carry these (and they arrived by post this morning!)
• and it's kinda related to this poem - which I was fascintated by in my adolescence.

stickin' it to the middle class

In yesterday's Tennesseean, there's an interesting article about proposed tax reform. It seems that a Bush appointed panel is proposing to get rid of the alternative minimum tax (which is meant to target rich people who would otherwise pay little or no income tax), but since all proposals must be revenue neutral (i.e. you gots to get the money from someplace else), this panel is looking at eliminating or reducing two deductions which favor the middle class.

That is those for mortgages and health benefits. Who benefits most from those? The middle class and middle class aspirants.

Show your face

Are the Dutch outlawing the head-to-toe, face-covering burkha?

The Netherlands have certainly been having some difficulties over the coexistence of radical Islam and the Dutch version of a free and tolerant society (which is pretty dang free and tolerant).

I picked this item up over at the blog Harry's Place. Many of the commenters support the burkha-ban on the grounds that it's supporting the oppressed women who are forced to wear them.

But I think that whole line of thinking is a bit sexist. Yes, some women do experience extreme pressure to wear "Islamically acceptable" dress including threats of violence, and some women believe that they are under religious obligation to do so (in my admittedly limited understanding of the Koran, it's quite explicit that you don't have to cover your face) but a lot of women wear burkhas by choice and as a political statement. It's a classic "two fingers" to the West, or sometimes it's worn because the wearers believe that it expresses solidarity with Muslims "oppressed by West".

I'm not a big fan of hijab - the head scarf, but OK, whatever. But I have to say that I'm really against the face covering thing. In Western culture, covering your face means you're up to no good, and wearing this kind of outfit on the streets of Western European countries at the very least displays an appalling lack of sensitivity to the host culture. Unless they're fresh off the boat, people who wear face covering garb should have some idea of the impact and message their clothing has. (My guess is that many are fully aware and take advantage of our own fear of causing cultural offense.)

On the other hand, I strongly dislike the idea of Government legislating what we can and cannot wear.

More travel woes

Well, there's no Northern Line tomorrow either, so 660,000 daily passengers are SOL. I do have an alternative, and I'll probably work from home tomorrow anyway.

The BBC says the line will be 'running by Monday', but as they've also put that in quotation marks in their headlines, I'm guessing they have their doubts, too.

It's not entirely clear what's wrong with the line, but the crux of the matter is that there's a bit of hoo-ha over the way the line, its fleet and tracks, is maintained. The maintenance has been outsourced through something called a PPP (Public Private Partnership) to which there is a lot of public and union opposition. There did appear to be something wrong with some of the emergency braking systems on trains yesterday, but the main reason the line is shut down completely is that London Underground drivers are refusing to drive. Train drivers began walking out Wednesday night (which is why we had a bad journey yesterday - not signal problems as it was claimed)

Now, if it's really unsafe, I guess that's the right thing to do, but with this union you honestly never can tell. They have threatened strike over some workers sacked for drinking on the job, a worker sacked for taking months on sick pay for bad leg who then was found competing in a squash tournament, and for the demotion of a worker who ran through stops several times after ignoring clear safety warnings.

From the BBC story:

Drivers walked out on Wednesday evening because of safety fears. The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union welcomed assurances from LU that those who had refused to work would not face penalties. Earlier the RMT and train drivers' union Aslef said they would ballot members over industrial action if these drivers were "victimised" or had their pay docked.

But if you check out this Times story - you can start to work out what might be going on

The braking system, known as a trip cock, is supposed to stop trains from running through red lights and crashing into the train in front. The latest failure, at Mill Hill East yesterday morning, involved a train which had been modified after four earlier failures.

London Underground last night attempted to reassure the union by ordering a spare driver to sit in the cab as back-up in case the main driver failed to stop at a red light. This measure had been in place over the weekend but was removed on Monday because LU believed the problem had been solved.

Essentially, drivers are relying on the Emergency Braking system to stop the train when receiving a red signal instead of actually braking the trains when they see a red light. I guess the back up driver is meant to step in and use the brake if the first one is too lazy to do so. But instead, they've all walked off the job, leaving many people stranded.

Underground

Not so secret now

Britain's secret intelligence service - the SIS and popularly known as MI6 is not so secret now.

Today they launch a website at www.MI6.gov.uk

Apparently they'll be outlining their less secret functions and will be using the site as a recruitment tool (it's worked well for the only slightly less secretive MI5)

Read more about it at the BBC - since trying to access the MI6 website may be difficult. When I tried earlier, the server seemed to have fallen over. Or better yet check out www.mi6.co.uk which tells you all about Britain's favourite spy - James Bond.

Travel woes

I can always tell if the Northern line is packed up before I get to it by the number of unhappy faces at the bus stops approaching the station.

This morning there were lots of unhappy faces. Not angry, just resigned.

And sure enough the grill was across the entrance to the station. So I took a bus to the overground train station. This is exactly what happened on the morning of 7/7, so of course I had a moment of concern, but it just doesn't feel the same.

The Northern line was having problems yesterday, my journey was bad enough, but the Vol-in-Law had a dreadful journey back - including a PTI (person taken ill) - a guy collapsed right in front of him on a crowded, hot train. Someone pulled the passenger alarm to the chagrin of the ViL "we could have just rolled him onto the platform."

So anyway, there doesn't appear to be anything more malicious at play here than the scandalous underfunding of the Transport for London infrastructure.

Of course, it's raining and there's a distinct chill in the air and I arrived at the train station JUST in time to see my train pulling away and they only run every half hour. (The rain is not coincidental, we often have travel problems when it rains. Seems those who designed and run the network never anticipated any precipitation in England.)

I give up a seat on a bench to visit a little store in search of breakfast. The nearest store is run by Tamils, so the stock is mostly strange, vibrantly colored chutneys and frozen fish. Of course this store also caters to the burgeoning Polish population in the area so there's also a goodly selection of jars of orange fat, weird tinned soups with pictures of happy picnicking families (who picnics with soup?) and frozen cabbage dumpling balls (at least that's what I think they are, my Polish reading skills are poor). I consider a coke and some Doritos as these are among the few foodstuffs I recognise, but choose a V8 as a healthy option.

On my return to the station they've announced that the train is running even later. I have a cold and I have to pee (are there any toilets at the station, 'course not).

On the upside, at least you can smoke at an overground station. I love London, but days like these...

That down home taste

I've had two very kind offers today to procure and deliver tasty treats from America to me. One was from a friend from Ohio, who leaves from Heathrow tomorrow and who is already bringing back Velveeta and milk duds for others.

The other was from St Caffeine who offered more regional delights. He said do you want something from the Southern or more specifically North Alabamian. I scratch my head in puzzlement, what's a particular speciality of North Alabama?

The first thing that popped into my head to both requests was SunDrop. Now the Ohio friend had never heard of SunDrop (but I know that St Caffeine knows what I'm talkin' about.)

She and a British colleague both asked me "What is SunDrop?"

This is a question I've probably had to answer a thousand times. And there is but one answer:

"SunDrop, my poor uninitiated friend, is the nectar of the gods. SunDrop is a soda, it's a down home taste that picks you up. Within 30 seconds of drinking it, you feel revived, within a few minutes you may feel a little jittery, but that feeling passes, and then you want another one. Its secret ingredient is resin."

The British colleague decides to Google SunDrop. "It's all one word, " I tell her.

She finds the website and says. "It looks like Mountain Dew." Yes, yes, yes, I've heard that before, it's nothing like Mountain Dew. SunDrop has a flavor all its own.

"What flavor is it?" They ask. "Yellow." I reply

She also sees it's described as a "community drink." She thinks that's kind of sweet.

I guess. Maybe crack cocaine is a "community drug". All I know, is that it's hard to kick the SunDrop habit, and you never really get free. I haven't had one in 2 years, and I'd crawl over your near lifeless body to get a cold one now. I can feel the cool smooth roundness of the small glass bottle in my hand. I can hear "pssht" as I twist off the cap and its subtle aromas rise to my nostrils on a golden mist. I feel the press of the bottle against my lip and I can almost, almost taste that sweet, delicious SunDrop liquor on my tongue. Ahhh.

I think I need to lie down now.

Anyway, they got all kinds of cool stuff on the SunDrop website, like:

• a forum for SunDrop addicts (including a comment from someone whom I scarily resembled in my heavy SunDrop days),
• recipes (kids, I'm thinkin maybe you shouldn't try these at home)
• and merchandise

I could snark at the merchandise, but I am actually the proud owner of a SunDrop brocade sofa throw. (Thanks VolMom).

Technorati Tag: sundrop

Update on my troubles with large corporations

The Bradford and Bingley saga
Well our troubles with Bradford and Bingley aren't over, but they have informed us that our complaint has entered the formal complaints procedure. I have every confidence that we will see a successful resolution. (Not). Since I've given up hope of ever seeing my driver's license again, I have ordered a new one. I knew that the DVLA (driver and vehicular licensing agency) was really difficult to negotiate, but I had forgotten how much so. Trying to get through the automated phone menu was insane.

The DVLA use some kind of voice recognition software "if you would like to remove the bad driver points from your license, say 3. If you would like a replacement license, say 4" and so on. So I'm saying "four, four, four" as they cycle through the options until I hear
"...say 17, after the tone". And then I hear the tone. Oh.

So then I've said 4, and I wait a long time listening to some kind of poppy-hip-hoppy "baby, baby, baby" and I wondered why I ever said that "The Four Seasons" wasn't good hold music. But once I'm through to a real operator, I quickly order and pay for a new license and they're even using my same photo - the good one.

The Hertz saga
The random fine assigned to me by Hertz hasn't gone away yet, but I did speak to a nice woman at their Dublin call centre who apologised profusely when she finally looked into the records and saw that indeed the parking ticket (issued in London when I was in Scotland) couldn't have been mine. I do have to say that the call centre workers have been charming (Really. Who doesn't love an Irish accent?) but I don't understand why it took three calls for someone to look up my records.

Well, it was all I could do to keep from cryin'

Sometimes it seems so useless to remain...

Is there a link between country music and suicide? Apparently so.

I know this is old news - in fact this research won the "Ig Nobel" prize last year (the best of this year's winners involves exploding trousers), but this is the first I've heard of it.

Some researchers found that the prevalence of country music could explain 51% of the variance of white suicide rates between radio markets. The researchers posit that this variance is caused by those who already have suicidal tendencies getting more despondent after listening to depressing themes in country music (wife left, lost job, dog got run over, etc.)

OK, fine. But what really gets me is that within their sample, the researchers controlled for "southerness". What?

The effect is independent of divorce, southernness, poverty, and gun availability. The existence of a country music subculture is thought to reinforce the link between country music and suicide. Our model explains 51% of the variance in urban white suicide rates.

What are the particular markers of "southerness" that they controlled for?

Anyway, this doesn't worry me. I'm a gal who smokes despite big warnings on the pack that say "THIS WILL KILL YOU". I will still listen to country music. No one can stop me.

Though I may be safe, because I'm not a member of the country music subculture. No siree, I'm a member of the country music counter-culture! Yee-haw.

Hat tip to my pal St. Caffeine, whom I've shamelessly ripped off, again.

Cultural blindness

When you grow up within a culture, lots of things are so normal that you don't even see them, you don't question them. Things could be better, but no one ever thinks to change them, because it doesn't even occur that they could be improved.

Melusina has a great post about toilets that illustrates this perfectly. American toilets could be better, but we're so used to the bog standard.

I think cultural blindness is in play when it comes to the British Broadcasting Corporation. The good old BBC has been telling the Brits for such a long time that they have the best television in the world. And you know, they've believed it. (And maybe it was true in 1952 or something, I don't know)

They've also been told that the reason they have such great tv (there was whole ad campaign based on this) is because of "the unique way that the BBC is funded".

How is the BBC funded? Through a special punitive tax called the license fee. This year it costs £123 to operate a television in your home. If you don't pay the license fee (maybe because you don't own a tv) you get a series of threatening letters from the BBC. They send round special "television detecting vans", issue with fines of thousands of pounds and get the bailiffs [repo men] out after you if you still don't pay.

Not only is this tax regressive and stupid, but if you're among the poor or the financially illiterate you can buy weekly license stamps at exhorbitantly higher prices. Some people have gone to jail because of the license fee. Not only that, but I heard one story from a former colleague that a friend of his didn't pay the license fee and when fee collectors came around (tip: they don't have the full power of the law, you don't have to let them in - so don't) they happened to be out, but the babysitter was in and they slapped her with the thousand pound fine.

And another thing that gets up my nose is how they'll pay millions outbidding rival free-to-air commercial channels for soccer or buy up American shows and then not show them, or show them at really weird hours.

But today the BBC is requesting further above-inflation increases to the license fee (I was aghast at the £123 price, since the Vol-in-Law usually deals with the day-to-day finances, I hadn't seen the bill in years - I really take a role in our household more like that of an audit committee)

On the BBC website, in a 'have your say section' they want to know if the license fee should be increased:

My answer: NO NO NO NO NO

And that was the answer of many readers, but some said:

I'm quite happy with the licence fee, and the only channels I watch are BBC ones as I just cannot be doing with adverts.
Nell, Tring, Herts

It is very difficult to imagine how one could get better value for three pounds a week. The people who complain about the licence fee should feel lucky that the BBC channels have not been sold off to a private company - which will charge a subscription and fill the screen with mindless advertising.
John, Stockport, UK

Has anyone actually seen TV abroad where there is no licence fee? I am happy (for once) with what I pay for. Most people who complain about the licence fee are happy to pay for Sky. Sorry to break this to you, there is no such thing as free TV.
Zach Rathore, Manchester

If it keeps the BBC doing the excellent work they do then I'll cheerfully pay up.
LouisC, Sandwich, UK

The only excuse that I can make for these people is cultural blindness.

But I'm not so sure about this guy:

The BBC is fantastic value. I only wish our PBS (public broadcasting service) offered the same quality and price as does your BBC.
Charles, USA

To him I want to say - yeah, see how you like it when PBS starts sending a SPY van to park at your house.

Not so dismal

Who knew that the folks over at the Adam Smith Institute (the free markets think tank) had a blog? And that on their team blog they have a joke of the day?

Who said economics was the dismal science?

---

BTW - that was a rhetorical question, but if you want an answer, you can find a kinda disturbing one here. Turns out there's a racist origin, and I now have greater than my already great respect for Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill

Granddad blogging: Under fire

Last week my grandfather sees his first Germans at the front, and then just as he got there pulled back to a relief area. This week they train hard for a river-crossing that takes a Tennessee boy by surprise and come under fire.

They’d carried us on back to a rest area then issued dry clothes and dry shoes and put us through a chow line and fed us and put us in barns in a French village and in these barns we got up in the hayloft and went to sleep. We slept that night and the next morning we fell out to breakfast. And they said “Alright, we’re gonna have a little exercize.”

So after all that mess they started us doing close order drill, just like we’d done in England and like we’d done in Camp Blandon, Florida. And we were sorta unhappy about that. But that didn’t last for long, til they told us we were gonna have to go across a river and attack the Germans. Well a river was a great big body of water to me, I didn’t know what it was. But they carried us out to a little old lake and they had some pontoon boats on it and we would run down and get in those pontoon boats and row across the “river” – the lake and then run up the hill on the other side and then come back and do it over and over. And I don’t know how many times we crossed that little old body of water, and then one morning they said “We’re gonna cross that river tomorrow and attack the Germans.”

Well, here we go. ‘Bout midnight they get us up and load us on the trucks. And about two o’clock we get on to this river. And there are the pontoon boats piled up over there, but we look at the little old river – what they called a river looked like a creek to me. And there was a log out across it, and we never did use the pontoon boats we just walked across these logs.

We got over across in this bottom on the other side and I never knew whether it was German artillery or American artillery or whether it was landmines or what, but the whole world – it seemed to me like – exploded everywhere. And they said run, run, run, run, run, run forward.

We didn’t know what else to do, so that’s what we did and we ran up to pine woods, great big old pine trees and then the shells started falling on the pine woods and they were using proximity shells that didn’t explode until they got so close to the ground or so close to an object. And they were gettin’ so close the top of these pine trees and exploding. So there were splinters and wood and stuff just falling all over us from everywhere. A few people got a few splinters in them.

And I heard them calling on the radio to stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. We had gone further and faster than we were supposed to, because we didn’t have any opposition. And we had run under our own artillery. Well, they finally got that stopped. And I guess it must have been about 10 o’clock in the morning, and I look around and the next thing I saw everybody was breaking their old K rations out and eating. I later found out that when you were under attack or you were in combat that one of the things that you did for some reason it made you want to eat. And that’s what we did.

[What's a K Ration?]

A K ration is a thing that in a box about the size of a cracker jack box. And it has enough food packed in it to feed one person three meals. It has a little canned ham, a little cheese, a few crackers a little hard candy package or two of cigarettes, some lemonade some coffee, and just a bunch of junk like that. And it’s very concentrated food and it doesn’t have any taste, but it has a lot of nutritional value and when you’re going in combat they issue that stuff. When they issue it to you, you can bet your bottom dollar that you’re fixin’ to go in combat.

Well, the next thing we get somewhere – I don’t know where we are – and they say we’ve got to run these Germans fast, we can’t let ‘em stop. Take off down the road, and we took a little Mexican sergeant and another old boy that came in about the same time that I did – the only thing I remember about him was that one of his hands was in bad shape and I wondered why in the world they took him in and on top of that they gave him a B A R to carry and they had this little Mexican sergeant and this boy and myself – we were the point – out in front of everybody and everything.

We sauntered down the road not knowing what was up ahead or what wasn’t up ahead. There was a thicket out in front of us and when we got to that thicket all of a sudden that thicket wasn’t there anymore. It was a camoflaged false front and it fell over and fell down and there was a great big old German 88 gun that they were shootin’ just like a rifle at us.

And they started on the back end of our line and were comin’ up towards the front and they finally got to us and the shell that came in – I don’t know how close it was to us but this boy with the B A R – it killed him and this little Mexican who was experienced – he knew what was gonna happen – he had crawled in a culvert and got his head up in it just as far as he could and it just tore his back all to pieces. I presumed he was killed, but he wasn’t ‘cause I saw him later. It didn’t touch me.

And then shortly after our mortar section began dropping mortars on this 88 up there and they blew it up and took off ‘cause it was just a holding action that they had to slow us down to keep us from getting somewhere – I don’t know where. And then they ran us again, run, run, run, catch, catch, catch.

And we went down through a valley and there were dead Germans laying all down this road and Germans laying there crying for help and crying for water and this that and the other. And we didn’t dare touch ‘em, offer to help ‘em, or give ‘em water or anything else because we’d been told over and over that there were people that were booby trapped and if we tried to help ‘em or do anything for them we’d probably get blowed up ourselves. So we just had to look at ‘em and move on.

And then we got somewhere, way across the valley, we could see a bunch of Germans and we started shooting at them with our rifles and they started running and I don’t know where they went. And I don’t know finally where we stopped, but we stopped somewhere and we keep going. Run, run, run, run, run, stop, stop, stop. And try to catch up with the Germans. And I guess that was the thing to do, I don’t know.

________
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Hey kids, want some Nestle

Do y'all remember the Nestle boycott back in the late 70s, early 80s? It was basically in response to Nestle's marketing of baby formula to 3rd world moms, telling them it was better than breastmilk for their little tykes. Problem was, of course, it's not, and problem even more was that many people were making up the formula with unsanitary water.

Well, via Appalachia Alumni Association, I see that another Bush crony has been put in charge of UNICEF and now UNICEF is backing off from helping developing countries put in place legislation that outlaws unethical baby formula marketing.