The price of cowardice

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Explaining this site in more detail

It’s been asked why even have this site at dotcom.

When leaving Blogger due to their “guilty until eventually cleared” policy after a troll tried to take my site down in 2008, this was on offer, plus it was necessary to have a “dot com” in order to get the API key for Akismet. That key ran much more too.

Behind this site, on my WP account, are some five other sites, plus migrated  files from the Old Site, plus much else.

For heavy blogging though, this site you’re now on does not cut it –  WP have designed it solely for new bloggers with light loads – so the main blogging is found via the navbar link above: “Main Site”.

Pre-June 23rd, this might be the most important vid you’ll see

Mar 7, 2016 N.O. down at 21:00

UPDATE TUES MORN: Main site appears to be back up, grumbling along, it’s being investigated, this site here snoozes again for now.

It’s a situation where I don’t know if you, the reader can see the main site or not – I can’t and I can’t get in to find out.

If it’s still this way tomorrow morning, I’ll blog from here tomorrow.

The cold, dark heart of the British public

Matthew Parris writes:

What Jeremy Corbyn, like David Cameron, understands about the cold, dark heart of the British public – leave compassion to journalists and Lib Dems. Voters want a dash of acid.

Oh yes, I can relate to that and so, it seems, can the “cold-hearted” British public:

I think Mr Parris is on to something. When the little boy refugee was found drowned on a beach in Greece, the media tugged hearstrings for the plight of all refugees. But I found a much colder attitude amongst people I knew.

Hooked on Valentine’s

My tribute to Valentine’s Day, dedicated to Twilight and Rossa, with a certain person in mind:

The f***ing Taxpayers’ Alliance

Tim Montgomerie ‏

The f**king TaxPayers’ Alliance – as public sector bureaucrats describe it – is 10.

My OpEd in Thursday’s Times:

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4004036.ece …

The Times of London

A decade of struggle against the State Goliath

The f**king TaxPayers’ Alliance celebrates its tenth anniversary this week. Formally there may be no F in the TPA’s title but across the public sector the campaigning organisation created by Matthew…

View on web

………..

I say all power to the F-TPA and should they cease to do as they are doing, cease to be an utterly frustrating pain in the butt, then they are not fulfilling their prime directive.

This is what democracy is all about, this is why we can still lay claim to being a superior nation and possibly it’s the only reason remaining – we are still allowed to criticize.

So I, for one, am not going to put down the F-TPA in anyway, nor The Freedom Association, nor The Bruges Group nor any of them doing a good job.

Quick bites – better get ready to withdraw

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-12/europe-considers-wholesale-savings-confiscation-enforced-redistribution

[H/T Rossa’s mother]

Wimmin on bikes N873

Gutter blogging on Britain’s worst towns

You just gotta smile.   Least attractive towns at the Independent:

Slough, Birmingham, Scunthorpe

And then readers added:

Wallasey, High Wycombe, Milton Keynes, Edinburgh, York, Blackpool, Bradford, Hamilton, Maidenhead

Other lists had:

The EU, UKIP, the Harrogate Agenda, Autonomous Mind

By Wiggia:

There is something very strange going on, with the three main parties worried that UKIP might at last have enough potential votes to effect their status quo, those who in the past broadly supported the party and Farage are putting the boot in.

The reasons to a degree are valid if the minutiae of things said or printed or indeed not are examined in that way.

§ http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/it-has-been-laid-out-clearly-but/

§ http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/exposed-why-ukip-coalition-ignoring-slog-taunts-on-somerset-tories-voted-against-flood-defences-farage-didnt-turn-up/

§ http://eureferendum.com/

§ http://thefrogsalittlehot.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/are-ukip-new-judas-goats.html

But in the case of those involved with the Harrogate Agenda, however laudable their intentions and plans it appears to have got personal, the constant attack from Dr Richard North on his blog and now that of his supporters at what seems every opportunity has gone beyond fair criticism and become a campaign.

Welby is no Christian

If Welby took off his frock and gave up his sin-ecures, left the church and then turned around and said this:

… then he’d be showing some sort of integrity, albeit a twisted one.    But as a defender of the faith, as expressed in the two books of the bible, he is unfit for purpose and is doubly damned.

The concept of venal versus mortal sin is not so difficult.   Let’s step back from the religious and look at it in society in general.    If you do something wrong, e.g. an affair, then that is venal – it is weakness of the flesh, it can be forgiven.

If you try to lead someone else into that, knowing it to be wrong, then that is mortal.   Welby must know his bible and yet he speaks things anathema to that bible.   So he is failing to fulfil that which he was appointed to do.

Which level of Dante’s hell would he find himself at?

 

Bridges of Madison County

Call me soft and insipid, maybe gaga in my approaching age but I can see both sides in that little contretemps with Twilight and Amfortas over Bridges of Madison County.

I’ve not watched it but have seen stills, so had to go to Wiki, which concludes:

It is about the anticipation and consequences of passion—the slow dance of appraisal, of waiting to make a move that won’t be rejected, of debating what to do when the erotic heat matures into love light. What is the effect of an affair on a woman who has been faithful to her husband, and on a rootless man who only now realizes he needs the one woman he can have but not hold?” Corliss concludes “Madison County is Eastwood’s gift to women: to Francesca, to all the girls he’s loved before …

P-h-e-e-e-w-w [let’s breath slowly out]. Where to start?

Romance in film and music

One of my favourite moments from the last seven episodes, Series 7

This headline:

Arwen and Aragorn’s romance nearly didn’t happen

… illustrates the need, for the mainstream, to have some sort of romance in film or music.

Northwest storm live blogging

19:00: Still pretty wild but unless it gets worse, signing off from this post. Going to bed early to watch Clara er the last Doctor Who – The Name of the Doctor.   Boat’s still solid.   New bed’s nice too.

18:00: Raining inside my place onto the bags, thinks beginning to break out there on the house, seems to be getting stronger. How are the commuters at this time?

17:06: First loss of power, came back on. I’ll blog till it dies. My place is right at the point the elements hit – top of large mansion. Oops, power just went again.

17:01: Sky over river opaque, water scudding across the water and other water scudding across that. Not dry. Was talking today to locals about flooding possibilities – how could it, they asked – everything is a waterway around here, taking it out to sea. Just had a bad gust come through and almost took the roof off. Lots of fun.

16:43: Hit like a smackeroo blurby, branches straining – actually flapping – things flying about in the yard, boat as solid as a rock.