Are you a shareholder in any avation company

It’s weird… the feeling that there’s a sort of pattern that seemingly repeats itself again and again, almost like looking at fractals, some are small, some are bigger, but the pattern’s the same, that’s the important thing… I think!

Waves of hysteria, followed later by another wave of hysteria. Volcanoes, bird flu, the millenium computer bug, the threat from international terrorism… how long is this list?

It almost seems like a conspiracy, but maybe a “conspiracy” isn’t even necessary, when the ruling elites seem to agree on so much, speak the same language and have pretty much the same attitudes and world-view?

It’s like the public are being socialized, trained, or groomed, to accept being controlled and their liberties curtalled by the state, with very little calm and sober, rational debate. And the central role of fear runs through it all, and the implicit promise of protection by the guardian state. Trust us, and all will be well. Don’t think, just trust us.

A few days ago we heard the great, emperor, conman, Obama doing it. Scaring the wits out of everyone about the close to impossible threat of a terrorist group attacking a western country with a nuclear weapon, and, therefore, reads the subtext, that’s why we need to attack Iran, before it’s too late! And does one see, anywhere, in the liberal, serious press, any real examination of Obama’s pitch, any rational, calm, evaluation of whether the bullshit he’s spouting has any connection to reality at all?

Once again we are asked to trust, not think, suspend our critical faculties and accept that witches and witchcraft and Satan and his minions really, truly, exist.

just because in this case there has been a massive over-reaction based on the precautionary principle and computer models, there’s a danger that conspiraloons will use this episode to fuel their fantasies.

just because the bill started mounting to a few hundred million our leaders crumbled under the pressure.

when it comes to the real dangers of climate change we must hold true to the models and the precuationary principle, even when the bill is measured in billions not millions.

if we fail to act on climate change it won’t just be a few people falling out of the skies it will be the end of the world as we know it.

To try an be precise, which is difficult for me, I think there’s a cultural shift going on, a move away from the core precepts of the enlightenment… truth, rationality, education, science, observation… going on. And instead we are moving backwards culturally and intelectually… to pre-enlightenment values and ways of looking at the world, with superstition, faith, paranoia and relgion rearing their ugly heads once more. Why?

Why? Because society is shifting course and moving backwards towards a social and economic structure that reminds one of… of fuedalism. New fuedalism with the gap between the rich and the poor exploding and the reign of the middle-class being challenged in western countries.

We seem to be on a historic trajectory, where there will only be two important classes once more… peasants and aristocrates, and the rich are abandoning everyone else but themselves and once more they are retreating behind the walls of their castles.

And all the while, our state, with our tax pounds sterling, finances ‘friends’ like this great pal of the Vauxhall Cross Tea Company, Ltd (and other, associated tea-companies):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Omar_Saeed_Sheikh

writerman is right, which is why the poor and powerless need to use what little power they do have to keep ‘aristocrats’ like Gordon Brown in power. People knock him but he wants to look after us and cushion our lives as much as possible against the hard knocks of reality.

Writerman, if you look at episodes of [popular British TV sci-fi serial] Dr Who during the Russell T. Grant lead tenure, while excellent in many ways, they all seemed to be about baddies imperiling specifically London as perceived world-node. Week after week after week of this, instilling itself into the minds of children, a prescription to be swallowed with a truckload of saccharine, soapy tears.

It began to get to me – so that I was empathising with the Daleks and those spaghetti-faced things.

Look at Hollywood blockbusters, and it’s aliens perpetually attacking the USA and the President – forever wise and Mosaic – intoning gravely to Bruce ‘Bullet-Headed Saxon Mother’s Son’ Willis to go get ‘em, Bud.

For ‘Lord of the Rings Part 2′, just as US troops rampaged around Asia (again!), we had the baddies of Near Harad as Arabs – uniting with Tolkien’s imperialist sub-texts (well, not so sub, actually). I almost walked out of the cinema at that point and I did exclaim (I don’t normally do this), “F-in bastards! Why did they have to do that? They didn;t have to do that”.

All of this numinous activity, combined with a blurring of boundaries b/w politics and entertainment – I blame Crimewatch as the UK’s original version of ‘the docu-drama is king’, and the soma of ‘reality TV’ and we do indeed have a recipe for mass pliance and normative compliance.

Or else the government are making a political decision to send planes back into the sky despite the risk in order to avoid losing votes during an election campaign

this paranoia seems to be more prevalent in britain than in some other countries. for example when last week the air ban was announced I checked the web site for manchester airport, they had effectively suspended it and put up a general page saying we’re closed check with your airline. I then checked a scandinavian airport and their web site was working normally and indicating that many of the flights were indeed cancelled. However some SAS flights which connected with UK airports, Manchester being one of them, were not shown as cancelled at all! They had the arrival and departure times shown and seemed to be operating to a normal timetable. I did not check if they actually did connect but there was nothing to indicate to the contrary.

I suspect that in the UK this precautionary principle is more driven by a desire not to be sued by some no win no fee lawyer. It is often referred to as health and safety as a catch all. The main motive behind it, as for many things in britain is money, and not wanting to have to pay out.

Brian says, “…which is why the poor and powerless need to use what little power they do have to keep ‘aristocrats’ like Gordon Brown in power. People knock him but he wants to look after us and cushion our lives as much as possible against the hard knocks of reality.”

Surely one is taking the piss?

It would be nice if decisions of this nature were based on science and not on political or economic grounds. As it stands, I haven’t even seen any risk/benefit analysis regarding flight safety.

As little as I trust government, I trust big business even less. Politicians may do anything to retain power, but the airlines will do anything to pad the bottom line. I’m sure they’re quite willing to gamble with passengers’ lives if it could improve their profit margin.

If anyone can point me towards some empirical data indicating whether or not flight through volcanic ash is safe or not, I’d appreciate it!

And one very important factor in this trend is the concentration of wealth and power. In the UK we see the concentration of wealth and power in London – capital has not been devolved, quite the opposite.

I suspect that Duncan McFarlane has it right; see also his comment on the previous thread:

Duncan McFarlane at April 20, 2010 2:29 PM

The planes couldn’t fly until that law was suspended. Money talks, again.

Edo, I think Brian is a Nu-Lab shill.

writerman: an interesting article here about the new feudalism (and the role of carbon credits in helping usher it in):

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17826

It seems to me, the question is not what the decision is, so much as how it was reached ?

It ain’t as simple as that. During the lockdown when very few aircraft were flying at all, two Finnish F18 Fighters north of Helsinki sufferred serious engine damage and “the engines may never power an aeroplane again”. That strikes me as an exceedingly high hit rate. Obviously the financial pressures on the airlines are overwhelming, and the disruption enormous. However if you have large numbers of aircraft flying over an area that has already caused engine damage, then the likelyhood of this being repeated is very significant.

I would be the last one to normally defend the UK Met Office, because I think their record over the propaganda of “Global Warming” together with their enormously expensive and largely useless computer models is appalling. However in this case I think their advice was correct. The problem has not yet gone away. The weather pattern is still much the same.

This is an extremely good video on the subject.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/04/20/340876/ash-cloud-video-david-learmount-analyses-the-volcanic-dilemma.htm

Tony

Im not convinced yet by the idea that there was never much danger from the ash cloud to flying. I think flights might be gettin routed trough gaps in the clouds cover.

http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Volcanic_Ash

Hullo Craig,

I didn’t read all the comments on this and the last piece but I did do a quick search for NATO, as in NATO air force exercise BRILLIANT ARDENT (running right through April). I found nothing sure enough. It’s worth checking out. You can either google it or pop into aangirfan.blogspot.com. The exercises are proceeding uninterrupted and so far it seems that no planes have fallen out of the sky. Wow. They’re either the bravest chaps ever or they know something we don’t know. Take your pick.

Not that the conventional wisdom sorts will care for this but of course they’d misprepresent this. This and every other goddamn thing. The sole say-so for the whole gig came from the Met office, a wholly owned subsidiary of the MOD. And all on the basis of a single computer simulation with no atmospheric tests done at all. No surprises really given that these are the same people who’ve been so tremendously truthful about global warming.

In this, as in anything, the only question that counts is, ‘What suits the owners of the reserve bank system?’ If it’s in their interests to have national economies crash, it’s not as if they’d scruple for a second before bringing it about. It’s not as if they have to answer to anyone and it’s not as if there’s nothing in it for them. A new world order is in the offing and the bankers are clearly ‘it’.

Besides have you ever noticed how the worse things get the more imperative it is that we have a new world order? Same thing every time…

And in this campaign the grounding of Europe’s civilian air fleet is the merest bagatelle.

It’ll be interesting to see what the wear and tear of the engines in these airliners is like over the next few weeks.

Based on the available evidence however, they were right to ground the fleets until things had been checked out. To crow about being right about an “overreaction” is imho premature. As far as I can see they were damned either way. I imagine you would have been amongst the first to have slammed them should airliners begun falling out of the sky on the grounds of being cavalier…

It should also be noted that the aircraft are flying above the height at which the ash is present, thus much reducing the engines intake of the stuff. When coming into land, they are as another commenter put it looking for areas where there are lower levels present and making detours to other airports where larger concentrations exist.

IMHO writerman, brian and the_leander are right, or at least are erring on the correct side of uncertain.

Writerman: culural shift: spot on.

The situation was/is a trade-off between the costs of not flying against the costs of higher maintenance.

The ash cloud was/is quite well dispersed, not dense like it was for BA flight 9 in Indonesia in 1982 which caused the concern. What this means is that we cannot expect planes to just fall out of the sky like BA-9 as soon as they encounter the cloud. But what will happen is that the engine turbine blades will gradually accumulate a glaze on the low-pressure surface and around the cooling vents, thickening each time the plane flies through the cloud. Obviously worse for repetitive short haul flights than long haul. Furthermore, it will affect all the engines on a plane at the same time, not like the usual faults which randomly cause one engine on a plane to mis-perform or need maintenance. This will almost certainly mean shorter maintenance intervals for the engines and earlier replacement – not a cheap option for the airlines but I suppose the ban became long enough to make the trade-off in favour of higher maintenance costs over no-fly costs. Let’s also hope that all affected airlines do in fact spend the money to do this extra maintennance or we could expect a plane to crash after several flights. They almost certainly will, because if just one plane were to crash, that airline would be permanantly wiped out and the loss of confidence in flying would affect all airlines.

Now the airlines will be screaming at government and NATS, trying to blame them for ‘bad decisions’ so that they can stick out the begging bowl, since BA at least was not insured against the no-fly losses.

I was flying all around Africa this week. Not affected at all..maybe this is why I left the UK.

Too early in te mornng, my brain’s not ingear. Writerman: I agree with the gist of this bit:

“I think there’s a cultural shift going on, a move away from the core precepts of the enlightenment… truth, rationality, education, science, observation… going on. And instead we are moving backwards culturally and intelectually… to pre-enlightenment values and ways of looking at the world, with superstition, faith, paranoia and relgion rearing their ugly heads once more.”

But not the rest.

Frazer: remarkable prescience.

Richard Robinson

‘It seems to me, the question is not what the decision is, so much as how it was reached ?’

Good point!

It’s the “pattern” of hysterical over-reaction to perceived threats, that subsequently show themselves to have been wildly exaggerated, that interests me. How does this process function and why exactly? How “natural” is this reaction from the state’s side?

Is there a kind of in-built mechanism in the corporate/state worldview that inexorably draws more and more areas of life under its control/influence?

It would appear that the state increasingly feels that it is under “attack” both from without and within, and reacts accordingly to defend itself, even if the actual level of the threat is exstremely small, when examined and scrutinized calmly.

There appear to be substantial economic and political benefits in inflating a threat and then providing the means to protect the population from the threat. One could mention the explosion in private security solutions and the massive use of video cameras in the UK as only two examples.

The biggest example though is the vast resources devoted to the war on terrorism, a virtually non-existant threat to our way of life.

I saw the first commercial jet I’d seen in days, this morning at 8:25, headed away from London towards the north-east. Just heard another, a great roaring in the sky. Oh well, the peace and quiet was nice while it lasted.

We little people are just playthings of the gods. The gods in question consist of mainly amoral forces like money, greedy men and corporate interests. The one god that can play on our team is the state. We must submit to the state the power and information it needs from us if it is to have any chance of defending us from these amoral forces. Of course these amoral forces are also fighting to control the state so they may act unopposed. Deity help us should Gordon Brown lose.

Brian,

while I agree with most of your 9:14 comment, your faith in Gordon Brown seems misplaced to me. Big money has been very effective in diverting the British state’s behavoiur to its own advantage. We need structural change in government to make democracy more robust. A hung parliament is more likely to deliver such change than Gordon Brown.

Nobody,

I’m the New World Order shill around here, and I say that we need international government, or cooperation of national governments, precisely to counter the dangers from banking and multinational companies that you highlight.

Nobody,

sorry, that should be “that Brian highlights”.

Look at it from the point of view of the man who has to decide whether it’s safe or not (and imagine the horror if you say it is when it isn’t).

Previously volcanoes were rare events and tended to be in far away places that nobody (or at least, nobody with much clout) cared about. Because of this you don’t have much data on how much ash is safe, and nobody wants to risk a plane finding out, so you say ‘any ash is unsafe’ and leave it at that.

Suddenly ash is effecting half of Europe, people with large cheque books care about the question and are willing to risk their own jets finding out the answer, and you get a lot more data you never had before and it becomes a lot more important to finesse the rules a bit. No wonder they changed their minds.

In short it seems perfectly natural that you would start out with a blanket ban and then gradually look at reducing that as more data became available. Exactly what happened. You can argue about the time scales, but it strikes me more as brave to reopen the airspace that as cowardly to shut it down.

Brian,

OK, OK, I submit, I submit!

Dan,

the Indonesian incident was in 1982, I think. Iceland hasn’t moved, it always was volcanic, and the prevailing winds always blew towards Europe and its busy airspace. This latest incident couldn’t have come as a surprise.

Clark! Noooooooo!

It’s been an interesting taste of life, without those big metal dragons in the sky. I liked it.

As for the state, l’etat c’est nous, to adapt a well known phrase. Being, truthfully, totally uninterested in politics, I used to prefer the idea that you could just hand it all over to a bunch of people who would then get on with it with reasonable efficiency, but it doesn’t seem possible anymore. If indeed, it ever was.

So what about the RAF then.

Writerman

I agree with analysis where fear is the key in obtaining behavioural compliance and obedience. Fear is now a major industry not least Insurance, Breakdown covers, protection plans etc. Notices and signs display penalties or consequences of not complying such as you will be prosecuted, fined, clamped, Jailed the lists are many. Notice the the fear driven adverts, a good example are the BBC’s notorious adverts “we are on to you” or the DVLC “we know where you live”.

On ITV last night Liam Fox and Harriet Harman were selling the Nation the Ultimate Premium insurance Trident. “We need an Independent Nuclear deterrent” said Liam Fox opposed by Charles Kennedy who talked about alternatives. Like all good Insurance Policy please read the small print Trident does not offer protection against, Volcanic Ash, Flooding, Drought, NHS Cuts etc but it is good buy if you want to be safe they say may be the should also Take up the Obama Slogan ” Yes we Con”

Hi Technicolour,

yes, I find politics an unfortunate necessity. The feedback loop has to be closed or the system’s gain rapidly approaches infinity, so unfortunately we all have to be involved.

“we need international government, or cooperation of national governments, precisely to counter the dangers from banking and multinational companies”

Clark, I think there are many problems with that statement, so many that I don’t know where to start.

MJ,

yes, I agree. For instance, governments appear to be greatly influenced by Big Money already, maybe international government would just be a bigger, more dangerous monster.

But *something* is going to end up as the most powerful set of systems, whether or not an attempt is made to create international democracy and accountability.

I must not fear…fear is the mindkiller. I haven’t read Dune for years, but found myself remembering that one rather fondly. Agree, writerman and hatari, of course. It’s not just a mindkiller, it’s incredibly isolating. It takes over and one forgets that other people might be scared too.

Paxman was an anus last night, I detest Nu-Lab and can’t stand Lord Adonis, but adversarial line of questioning was totally unsuitable. To expect the ministry of transport to take a cavalier approach to this issue, trivialises the fact that potentially thousands of lives depend on a correct decision.

To the suggestion that there is some health-and-safety ninnyism at work here, or some political game afoot, someone first should explain how the whole of Northern Europe coordinated the shut-down of the air-space based on some spurious atmospheric modelling and baseless overcaution.

And perhaps most important of all, it remains the case that commercial airlines are not equipped to detect large ash concentrations in the atmosphere, I sure as damn it hope that the decision to recommence flying is in part based on confidence that pilots can get the help they need to avoid more dangerous areas.

Could the decision to close airspace have anything to do with the recent air cabin crew strike?

I disagree – the airlines should have pressured the manufacturers to test their aircraft under such conditions and provide precise parameters for safe operation in the presence of ash. It’s not a hard test to make, and of course it will be done now. One can only blame the airlines that they did not require it many years ago. Without this information, the only possible correct decision in the face of an unknown risk was to suspend flights.

Lufthansa and KLM’s sending up of a handful of planes which returned without damage was an inadequate test to prepare for putting 20,000 aircraft back in the sky. The proper test is to fly instrumented planes through increasing concentrations of ash until damage is observed and then to determine an agreed safe level: but this is not a programme which takes a few days. After that, it’s simple to decide when flights should stop. Any other method is guessing, and should be unacceptable.

It annoys me to hear discussion of airline compensation: it was their business to evaluate this risk. The grounding was a result of their failure to do it.

Here’s a thought:

Check out Peter Dunscombe; he had his BBC Pension Trust members short airline stocks and then broadcast the Met Office fairy dust scare to shut down EU airspace and have airlines lose $200 million / day.

Personally, I’ve enjoyed immensely the absence of airliners in the skies, and wish desperately that the airspace closure had continued until the entire airline industry had collapsed entirely, so that we could be rid of it.

A return to airships, boats, and rail would be just fine. High-speed travel would be restricted to military, emergency, and space travel. Done.

Couldn’t agree more NomadUK apart from your list of exceptions.

Flowers from Kenya, weddings in exotic places, package holidays to the Far East- what nonsense. It is all unsustainable. Sooner or later it will all stop when the price of oil rises as the supply expires.

I remember playing Sim City on an old Amiga. The problems always started with a message from the game: “Commerce needs an airport!” Pretty soon, a helicopter would crash into a jet, vast devastation, fire department unable to cope…

Perhaps the decision to close airspace had something to do with the NATO exercise mentioned by Nobody.

A good and thought provoking essay by Emily Spence.

After Peak Oil, Are We Heading Towards Social Collapse?

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/emily_spence/27931/after_peak_oil_are_we_heading_towards_social_collapse

Mary, what about the Simon-Ehrlich wager?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon-Ehrlich_wager

I think we’ve died and gone to Thatcherite heaven.

And I don’t think I like it. The important companies must carry on being vital to The Economy, safety-advice from engine manufacturers can be drastically revised at short notice to suit (as I said before, _how_ was this decision reached ? What were the new facts that led to it ?) and any attempt at a sensible overview is big-state nanny nimbyism, regulation is automatically suspect. Understanding the situation hardly even seems to make second place.

All of which opinion is conditioned mainly by the way that I gain what knowledge I have of this; from The Media, so it’s to at least some (unknowable until later) extent an artefact of the infantilising way they present these things; instant Headline Panic Hell Chaos !

and, writerman’s “new feudalism” thing – in the media, reporting, and generally among ‘people’, the idea of “science” is getting severely rubbished, degraded, mis-presented, turned into nasty mush. I hear it myself in conversations. I see, I think, a number of special-interest groups using this as a technique to further their own points – ‘climate change’, ‘intelligent design’, and so on; and weirder stuff (MMR. angrysoba, I saw your comment – I’m not going there. You think someone’s daft on the subect, take it up with them, I have no comment). Astroturf, lot of research being done. And that’s just the stuff that could be amenable to Science As We Know it, as opposed to starting wars, forming impressions of political candidates, blah …

But as a general, explicit intention, I can’t see it so clearly. Because any such hypothetical group of conspirators, don’t they still want their private jets ? Even more, their supercool hitech surgical-precision kill-loads-of-baddies stuff ? You need your population of proles to be tech-savvy, science-friendly and generally somewhat educated, or you stop having that. A population that’s frightened of the scary dragons in the sky just isn’t going to keep this civilisation running, at all. cf. George Orwell on the engineering problems inherent in “2+2=5″.

In other words, decrying “science” in order to assert that you ought to be able to fly in an aeroplane when it suits you isn’t exactly a serious position.

Fear is the key. Make people afraid, really afraid, and they will allow the state to get away with almost anything in return for the promise to protect them from… from what exactly? At the core it’s fear of the unknown and the unknowable. It’s something like the superstitious fear of witches and witchcraft, and we know how many totally innocent people were “sincerely” tortured and put to death for non-existant threat, that non-the-less, people believed was real and imminent.

Take the case of “curveball” an Iraqi who turned up in Germany, and still lives there, with fantastic tales of Iraq’s programmes for producing various types of weapons of mass destruction. He was interviewed countless times, revealing masses of information, by the German security services who then passed this material to the American security services, who looked at it as well, then sent it on to the Whitehouse, where it was greeted with open arms in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. At last the evidence we need of Saddam’s evil plans!

Curveball’s story was a complete and utter fabrication. He had no contact with anyone involved in the Iraqi military or secret scientific programmes. He was a petty criminal who left Iraq because he was in debt. In Iraq his friends never believed a word he ever said to them.

Even the most superficial scrutiny of his revalations leads one to the conclusion that this man is a nutter, a chalatan, a compulsive liar, a man without any bonefides at all.

Yet we are supposed to believe that he fooled the combined security services of the west with his absurd cock ‘n’ bull story. That our being dupped was an honest mistake, a sincere mistake; like the invasion of Iraq was. That our intentions were honourable. No massive, international crime was committed.

Are there any conclusions we can arrive at? Proably that the state believes what it needs to believe at any given time. That belief is more powerful than truth. That ideology trumps reality over and over again. That we choose to believe what is in our interests to believe, no matter how grotesque the lie. That lies in the service of power are more powerful than truth.

I think Obama is actually a “worse” president than Bush, because he is a far better liar and therefore has the ability to get away with far more, like threatening to nuke Iran – all options are on the table. It’s the liberal supporters of the cult surrounding Obama that really irritate me to distraction. They are supporting the sainted Obama for saying things they would have crucified Bush for. The so-called “left” appall me as much as the “right”, if I’m honest about it.

writerman – “The so-called “left” appall me as much as the “right”, if I’m honest about it.”

We need more dimensions.

Off Topic,

You know Craig America is truly a wonderful place. The Constitution is truly a wonderful piece of wording, shame they cannot live by it.

As an example did you know the State illegally collects income tax from its citizens? Go check the IRS has no legal statute that allows them to collect taxes, in fact the Constitution prohibits the state from collecting a tax on labour (Income Tax) under the one of the Amendments (I think its the 17th amendment)

Have a nice day, oh and think how many people are not filling in the taxt returns if the didn’t know that.

Today’s Gradiuan goes a bit further.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/20/ash-cloud-aviation-industry-flying-risks

The Daily Telegraph has a questionnaire that tells you which party most reflects your views.

I don’t know how scientifically valid it is – but I guess whoever did it – just took the stated policies of all the various parties – otherwise there would be no point in doing it

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7541285/How-should-I-vote-in-the-General-Election-2010.html

The results I got by being completely honest put all the mainstream parties well behind the other horses…

Which suggests I am a right wing racist fascist.

Personally I thought I was a left wing capitalist with a passion for blondes, but I would quite happily have married my Muslim Girlfriend – if her racist parents hadn’t sent her to THEIR Country of origin for an Arranged Marriage

She was born in Manchester and knew absolutely Fuck All about Pakistan. She had never been there in her life.

I wonder how she is doing.

Probably being bombed to Fuck – by us white English and American cunts.

Sometimes I despair about the human race.

Tony

The Guardian have a special holiday offer – to Uzbekistan.

http://www.guardianholidayoffers.co.uk/holiday/uzbekistan-heart-of-central-asia?INTCMP=ILCTOFFTXT481

Anyone feel like dropping those nice folks at the Grauniad a line about fostering economic support for a dictatorship?

Of course there are always risks in flying, but if you possibly think you can, then just do it…

Well I did.

I started in 1976.

You see your brothers and your mates flying their models…and you think well should I just be a watcher and a land based controller – or should I actually try it for myself?

Just fucking do it

Even I did it

I went solo and got close to Silver C

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmik9RKQpAY

Tony

Tony: Thanks for the link. I came up LibDem 66%, Labour 57%, UKIP 36%.

MJ,

Do it again, but cheat a bit.

When it asks you which parties you would never consider voting for

Lie

Tony

Haha Tony I did it a while back.

The trick is to include all parties and hey presto:

I am BNP then UKIP then LibDem.

The algorithm clearly weights by the topics of most. least, neutral importance but is too crude to adduce voting intention unless you do eliminate the parties you can’t abide.

Apparently the system was developed in the Netherlands.

I agree with you Tony – despair – especially after looking at a comic in the local curry shop – notes left in a taxi are front page news. The propaganda machine is changing gear into over-drive!

With regards to whoever asked Larry

“Are you on the bus”

Well I was as clueless as he was…

So I started posting again in America…

And he followed me

I gave him a quote from a Gardening website about horse manure

Anyway when I had lost my job and had been unemployed for over 6 months

My Girlfriend was going on about Stonehenge Free Festival

I said we can’t afford it

She said – I will borrow my sister’s tent…

So there was supposed to be about 10 of us going

But just my Gilfriend and I travelled down from Lancashire to Stonehenge Festival

It was Free to get in – and the weather was O.K.

So we still had a bit of money left and walked into the local village

And we both took off all our clothes and swam and cleaned ourselves naked in the Stream in the local village…

Then we got dressed and started walking back again to Stonehenge

And this guy stopped in this enormous Transit van and asked “Do you guys want a lift???”

And he was playing Robin Trower – Bridge of Sighs and we sat in the front next to him…

So I guess

We got on the bus

Tony

If no one in your own peer group has ever done this thing before

And you haven’t done it either…

How do you exactly suggest it might be a good idea…

Unless they all have been quietly wanting to do the same thing for years

Well I don’t know about where you live

But if Us English can Queue Up To Get Into an Irish Pub in England For Saint Patrick’s Night

We ain’t going to Publisize what

We are Doing

Even The Date – Let Alone All The Pubs

St George’s Night Date 2010

My Wife has Just Told Me Where We Are Going

And She said

Type THIS Into The Web Browser

Tony

Clark,

“we need international government…to counter the dangers from banking”

Ha ha ha ha. What fine comedy.

One does hope you’re not in here playing this shill role for free, Clark. You should get in touch with the banks, or more specifically their lobbying heavies, and climb on board the gravy train mate. You are just the chap they’re looking for.

Otherwise when the new world order comes, it, like the current piecemeal reserve banking system to which each nation’s government is subject, will be an entity belonging entirely to the bankers and likewise subject to no one but themselves.

“Playing this shill role”

You obviously have no idea of what Clark’s like. You would if you’d been reading his posts. Disagree about international governments by all means but don’t insult him, please.

Yeah, Clark’s no ‘shill’, rather, he is a possible one-time ‘head’ and, I sense, an all-round decent guy.

Tea, Larry?

“We need more dimensions.” Richard Robinson

I couldn’t agree more. Eleven is definitely not enough, if you really want to travel (thinking is the easiest way).