John Galt speaks

I saw this over at Old Holborn's site and yes, I watched it. All 15+ minutes of it.

You are no doubt aware that I'm a fan of Ayn Grant's magnificent opus "Atlas Shrugged". I will no doubt be reading it again in the coming months. Her "hero" is a character called John Galt.

Here is a video of Ryan Air's CEO Michael O'Leary speaking in Brussels earlier this year. His speach could have been written by Rand. Please take the time and watch it all the way through. See if you don't find yourself agreeing with him long before the end.

Influencing modern music 1950-1985

This is my list of the top ten people who most influenced popular music from its birth in 1950 until machines took over in around 1985. It's entirely subjective, and you're free to add your own comments

1. Les Paul.
Les Paul has to be at number 1. As well as being the link bewteen the old and the new (he jammed with Django and Charlie Christian in the early 40s, had his own radio show, became Bing Crosby's musical director before singlehandedly inventing every aspect of recording that we take for granted today.
Multi track recording- Les Paul
Vari-speed recording- Les Paul
Sound on sound recording- Les Paul
Mixing desks- Les Paul
The solid electric guitar- Les Paul
You get the idea.

2. Ahmed Ertegun
He founded Atlantic records in 1950. He was there at the beginning of Rhythm & Blues. His achievements are too great to be listed, but he signed Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and Led Zepellin and was a major player throughout his long career. He died after falling at a Rolling Stones show in 2006. A giant.

3. Sam Phillips.
Owned Sun Records. Recorded Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. Say no more.

4. Jac Holzman
Founded Elektra Records in 1950. Discovered Judy Collins. Elektra Records had the best roster of artists in the mid- late 60s including Love, The Doors, Tim Buckley and the Incredible String band. He went on to sign The Stooges and Harry Chapin. When I was a teenager in the late 60s, most of my record collection comprised LPs on the Elektra label.
His protege Judy Collins discovered Leonard Cohen and gave him his first gig. Judy became Steven Stills lover and was the inspiration for "Suite- Judy Blue Eyes".

5. George Martin
Not just the fifth Beatle, but a brilliant composer and arranger. He also produced Jeff Beck's album "Blow by Blow", which was the first instrumental album to sell more than a million copies.

6. Joe Boyd
Started off by inviting long forgotten blues artists like Howling Wolf and John Lee Hooker to play at his college in the early 60s. Became European tour manager for US blues and jazz musicians. Was stage manager at the 1965 Newport Folk festival when Dylan went electric and changed folk music forever. Became UK A&R man for Elektra Records and signed the Incredible String Band. Opened the first underground music venue UFO where the house band was Pink Floyd. Produced Pink Floyd's first single. Discovered Fairport Convention and Richard Thompson. Single handedly created English Folk Rock. Discovered Nick Drake and Vashti Bunyan. Went into films and produced the soundtrack to "Deliverance". "Duelling banjos" is his only number 1, but he hated it so much he refused to have his name on the credits. And on and on.

7. Andrew Loog Oldham
Created the Rolling Stones. Created the cult of the pop music manager. Created Immediate Records. Created the idea of living your life as if you were in a film, with a music soundtrack playing constantly (he wanted to be Laurence Harvey). Disowned by the Stones who have tried to erase him from their official history, but love him or hate him, you can't ignore him.

8. Joe Meek
Created the most amazing sounding records using home made equipment in a flat above a shop in North London. Openly homosexual at a time when it was still against the law, he broke every "rule" of music recording. His records still sound great today, while his distractors are long forgotten.

9. Quincy Jones
Musician, composer, arranger and record producer (and all round good guy). His first band was with high school chum Ray Charles on piano while played trumpet.
His arrangements include the swing version of "Fly me to the moon" as recorded by Frank Sinatra (the original was a waltz from the 1920s)
Film scores, hit songs, you name it- he's done it. He has been nominated for a Grammy Award no less than 79 times, winning an astonishing 29 times.
He's produced for Frank Sinatra but is best known for producing Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album, which has sold 110 million copies worldwide. If anyone deserved the title of legend, it's Quincy Jones.

10. Cass Elliot
Last but not least, we have Cass Elliot. Her life was cut short just as she was entering a new phase of her life. She had a great voice and sold a lot of records both as a solo artist and as a member of the Mamas and the Papas.
She's in my list because of her gift of hospitality. She was a great hostess, and her house in Laurel Canyon was a magnet for musicians. Legend had it that David Crosby, Steven Stills and Graham Nash met at Cass Elliot's and sang together for the first time. Neil Young was always there. Joni Mitchell met Graham Nash at Cass's place. It can be argued that the whole West Coast music scene had its roots in Cass's home. It may have taken David Geffen's Asylum Records to bring the music to a worldwide audience, but it all began at Cass's.

Dead Horse Strategy

This has been around the internet for a while, but I think it's good, as worth passing on.

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from one generation to the next, says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.

However, in modern business, because of the heavy investment factors to be taken into consideration, often other strategies have to be tried with dead horses, including the following:

1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Threatening the horse with termination.
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
7. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.
8. Change the form so that it reads: “This horse is not dead”.
9. Hire outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
10. Harness several dead horses together for increased speed.
11. Donate the dead horse to a recognized charity, thereby deducting its full original cost.
12. Providing additional funding to increase the horse’s performance.
13. Do a time management study to see if the lighter riders would improve productivity.
14. Declare that a dead horse has lower overhead and therefore performs better.
15. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position

How to reduce government spending at a stroke

I saw this over at Burningourmoney and read it through. I encourage you to click on this link and read it yourself
http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2004&month=04

Then tell me that government spending can't be reined in. I've been in despair for such a long time about how this country is being systematically strangled whilst being simultaeneously raped and looted.
How can we kill the beast that sucks the very life out of the country?
The petty regulations that prevent jobs being created, that stifle creativity and enterprise, that make it easier to stay and home rather than earn self respect as well as money?

I didn't know the answer. But now I have read something that shows us the way.
It's so simple that it just needed spelling out.
The very principles that enabled business to adapt and change over the last thirty years just need to be applied.
Why does the government do the things it does?
Has anyone ever asked that question?
If the answer is "because we've always done it", then it's time to take a long hard look.
I recall a story about an ordinary business. An ordinary worker used to file certain documents. She'd done it for years. She'd been told to do it on her first day at work. No-one asked her what happened to the documents once they'd been filed.
Had anyone ever asked for them? No.
Had anyone ever looked at them? No.
Had anyone ever gone through the files and thrown them away? No.

She did the same meaningless task day in, day out, because no-one ever told her not to. It filled up her day, but it was meaningless, futile, unproductive and expensive. So why do it?

Apply that to government. Can you now see where to start cutting?
It all starts with a simple one word question- "Why?"

Here's an excerpt to whet your appetite-

"What about regulations? The regulatory power is customarily delegated to non-elected officials who then constrain the people’s liberties with little or no accountability. These regulations are extremely difficult to eliminate once they are in place. But we found a way: We simply rewrote the statutes on which they were based. For instance, we rewrote the environmental laws, transforming them into the Resource Management Act—reducing a law that was 25 inches thick to 348 pages. We rewrote the tax code, all of the farm acts, and the occupational safety and health acts. To do this, we brought our brightest brains together and told them to pretend that there was no pre-existing law and that they should create for us the best possible environment for industry to thrive. We then marketed it in terms of what it would save in taxes. These new laws, in effect, repealed the old, which meant that all existing regulations died—the whole lot, every single one.

You see? There is hope.

Touring with Nicki Gillis

Almost the last thing I accomplished before going down with CLL last year was to play bass for Nicki Gillis on her 2009 UK tour.
Well, she's back again in a day or two for another tour and I'm pulling out all the stops to be fit as possible and to play as many dates as I can this time. I still have one round of chemo to go through and if the last round is anything to go by, I should be OK. However, nothing is certain.

While I'm touring I'll be posting on this site
http://daveclemo-touringwithnicki.blogspot.com/

I'll give a day by day account and post photos and videos.
Please check it out. Nicki's a talented lady.

How to cut £50bn

The Taxpayers Alliance have been doing the sums and have published how it is possible to cut £50 billion in public expenditure.
Read it in full here
http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/campaign/2010/04/what-to-cut-the-essential-guide.html

Some highlights
Section 1: Tackling areas of spending that are not performing - Total: £7,705 million

1.1 Abolish the Bus Service Operators’ Grant - £451 million

1.2 End the ‘Preventing Violent Extremism’ grants - £15 million

1.3 Abolish Sure Start - £1,150 million

1.4 Abolish Building Schools for the Future - £2,300 million

1.5 Abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance - £530 million

1.6 Reduce ‘business skills’ support - £757 million

1.7 Halt further orders and upgrades for the Eurofighter - £740 million

1.8 Abolish England’s regional development agencies - £1,762 million

That is 7billion for a start. And you wouldn't even notice that they'd been axed.

Richard Thompson "The New St George"

Richard Thompson is in my top 2 guitarists ever. This track is from his 1972 debut album "Henry the Human Fly". I was one of the few who bought the album when it was released and I wore it out through repeat playings. RT has the ability to tap deep into the subject he sings about, so that the words resonate with truth and never seem to date. I just wish Id found this video last week for St Georges Day.



"Don't believe pretenders who say they would defend us
While they flash their teeth and wave the other hand is being paid
They choke the air and bleed us, these noble men who lead us
Leave the factory leave the forge and dance to the New St George"

Jeff Beck & Tal Wilkenfeld

Jeff Beck is in my top 2 guitarists of all time. (The other is Richard Thompson).
I bought Beck's album "Blow by Blow" in the mid 70s and it stillsounds fresh today, no doubt due to the production by George Martin, but mostly because of Beck's awesome guitar talent.
Both Beck and Thompson are able to play instrumental solos without once resorting to riffs, fillers or cliches.
This is Jeff Beck filmed at Ronnie Scott's a couple of years ago. I'm knocked out by his bass player Tal Wilkenfeld who looks about 14, but was 21 when this was filmed.
Watching Beck and Thompson play guitar makes me want to give up. Ive been trying to play this song "Cos we've ended as lovers for more than 30 years but I can't get the variety of tone or attack that Beck manages effortlessly.
I've also been playing bass a lot, but seeing Tal strut her stuff, and look like she's having so much fun- well, I better take up kazoo.

Give me strength

461 Ocean Boulevard was one of my albums of the seventies. I havent heard it in years. I was reminded of this track today so I searched on Youtube and here it is in all its simple glory.

X-Factor politics

The Last ditch has an excellent post about the current election and the fact that we have three parties all sharing the same centre ground. You can read it here.
http://lastditch.typepad.com/lastditch/2010/04/the-same-difference.html#comment-6a00d83451f09b69e20133ece34e04970b

I just posted this on my Facebook page "Ayn Rand said this "There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil." And we have three political parties all competing for the middle ground."

The author of The Last Ditch has this to say-

As voters peer and struggle to discern the differences between the parties now in contention, the truth is that - in key respects - they are the same. They are all Party X.
Vote for party X and this will happen:

1. You will work (if you work) for half the year for the government
2. The government will take the fruits of your labour and give them to the least deserving people of the world, whether they be African dictators (to buy weapons to use against their people), domestic criminals (to buy weapons to use against you when they burgle your house) or busybodies (to equip them to interfere in your life).
3. The government will believe that it knows what is best for you, despite being staffed by people every bit as prone to error as you are yourself.
4. The government will continue to make you hated or ridiculed in the rest of the world (and expose your warriors to danger) by conducting itself as if a small island nation of no particular current consequence was morally superior to all others.
5. Political games will be played at Westminster, while the laws are made by unelected men and women in Brussels.
6. Most of our children will be tragically denied a decent education while one side of the House of Commons rails but does nothing and the other side stokes envy of the few who do what all decent parents would if they could only afford it
7. Serious criminals will be glamourised, coddled and protected, while decent people will be criminalised to make them docile (and give the police some cheap wins).
8. The government will get larger.
9. The economy will rise and fall periodically, while the underlying trend in terms of the lifestyle an ordinary person's wage can buy continues downwards.
10. Our leaders will try to bask in the reflected glory of our daughter civilisation in America, while the worst (and I fear the most) of us continue secretly to envy it and wish it ill.

Now aint that the truth.

Visiting Time

Seen on Aulde Holborne's Facebook page. Genius!!

The Browns at Broadmoor Hospital.

Lies, damn lies and statistics

Here are a couple of graphics from the excellent Wattsupwiththat site
They both use exactly the same data. Exactly the same.

And this

One graphic has been designed to give the impression that we're all doomed. can you tell which one it is?
Read more here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/13/lies-damned-lies-statistics-and-graphs/#more-18419

Local Government Rich List

The Taxpayer's Alliance have been doing some heavyweight research to find out exactly how much the local government fat cats are troughing.
The results can be found here
http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/thrl2010.pdf
It's almost 200 pages long but it's worth checking up how much the top dogs and bitches at your local council are trousering.
There are at least 1250 of them earning more than £100,000 a year, and in this time of economic uncertainty, where many in the private sector have either lost their jobs, had below inflation pay rises or indeed, pay freezes or cuts, isn't it heartening to know that this figure has grown by 14% since 2007-8?
Well no actually.
These people are public servants. They serve us. Remember that.

I checked the list and found that Corby Borough Council don't have anyone earning more than £100k, but Kettering Borough Council's Town Clerk (or as he prefers to be addressed, Chief Executive) David Cook earns a whopping £145,000.
My council tax goes to pay his salary, then his pension, then the other salaries, then their pensions... oh and if there's anything left, they might empty my bin every couple of weeks.
I worked as a binman as an agency temp a few years ago. It was hard work and I was paid the national minimum wage, which as everyone knows, is actually the national maximum wage.
If the Chief Executive's pay were cut back to £100k (still four times the national average) they could afford to employ a couple more bin men. They'd be a lot more useful.

Northants County Council have seven people earning more than £100k. I'm not sure what any of them actually do, as their titles are in government doublespeak. I mean, what exactly is a "Director for Community Leadership"? We pay him/her over £117k. Nice little earner that.
And the Chief Executive gets almost £180k!

East Northants Town Clerk (sorry, chief executive) earned about £105k


South Northants failed to respond to the TPA's Freedom of Information requests.
Remember that. "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear"?

Northampton Borough Council also refused to give the information, despite being asked under the Freedom of Information Act. "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear", eh?




Wellingborough council's chief executive "only" earned £110k. Compared to Kettering, that's good value. Both Corby and Wellingborough have free car parking for their shoppers and their chief executives earn far less than Kettering's.
Does this mean that parking charges in my town are there to help pay the Chief Executive's salary? We need to be told.


I encourage you all to have a look at the TPA report, and ask yourself if our local councils are serving us, or are we serving them?


http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/thrl2010.pdf

Ayn Rand quotes

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. "


"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil."

 "Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims"

"So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money? "

"The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see. " 

 "The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

More here-
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ayn_rand.html 


 

Ayn Rand was right all along

The Devils Kitchen blog has an interesting post. He's commenting on the number of laws that Labour have passed in the last thirteen years. It's 4000 plus and still rising.
I've often said that the law will make criminals of us all, and it appears to be looming closer each day.
DK quotes from Ayn Rand's 1957 masterpiece "Atlas Shrugged", and I've copied the quote for you to read
""Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against—then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of law-breakers—and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

So now you know. Governments rule by guilt and fear. They have to have a bogeyman to keep you in line. Once upon a time it was the "reds under the bed", now it's climate change.
Don't believe a single solitary word. Ever.
And wake up to the fact that we are facing enslavement.

Get rid of the non jobs

The public sector Unison has recently launched a video that claims that cuts to public spending will hit front line services. This is called the Washington Monument Syndrome. Defined on Wiki as
"Washington Monument Syndrome, also called the "Mount Rushmore Syndrome", is the name of a political tactic used by bureaucrats when faced with reductions in the rate of projected increases in budget or actual budget cuts. The most visible and most appreciated service that is provided by that entity is the first to be put on the chopping block. The name derives from the National Park Service's habit of saying that any cuts to its projected increases would lead to an immediate closure of the wildly popular (and not very expensive to maintain) Washington Monument.

The Taxpayers Alliance have issued their version of Unison's video. It shows that public expenditure can be reduced without harming front line services
Check it out here

Whatever it is- I'm against it

Groucho Marx's wonderful satire on grundyism*.

The Marx Brothers began their careers during one of the craziest periods in US history- the prohibition era. It's now acknowledged that alcohol consumption went up during the "dry" years, and it allowed organised crime to control the supply and reap the profits. The US government had to reinforce the ban and had no revenue from liquor sales to pay for the enforcement.All brought on following an outbreak of grundyism.
The same this is happening today re the smoking ban. People still smoke as much and much of it is contraband. So the government has all the hassle of upholding an unjust law with none of the revenue. Added to that is the fact that pubs are closing down everywhere and the government is losing VAT and tax revenue that way.
And all because of a few Mrs Grundies who hate the idea that people might actually be enjoying themselves and put every obstacle in their paths to stop it.
So when he sang this song back in 1932, did all the Mrs Grundys realise he was taking the piss out of them?

Just listen to the words of this song that's less than a minute long.


*Wikipaedia defines Mrs Grundy as "a feared dispenser of disapproval"

Nick Hogan

The blogosphere has been busy commenting about Nick Hogan, who has been jailed for allowing customers to smoke in his pub. The story is here
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1254126/Pub-landlord-Nick-Hogan-given-smoking-ban-jail-sentence.html

I've never smoked and so you might think that I was in favour of the ban. Far from it. I think that it's outrageous that one minority can dictate to another how they should behave. Apparently the smoking ban is an EU directive. Go into bars in eastern Europe or Spain and see if they're taking any notice. They're not.
And quite rightly so. Since when is it the task of government (and an unrepresentative and unelected one at that) to define whether private establishments should allow smoking on their premises?
I wouldn't mind, but smoking is allowed in the bars in the Houses of Parliament. It's one rule for them and another for us.
If the majority of members of a private club decide to allow smoking, what right is it of anyone else to interfere? If a pub chooses to ban smoking, that's up to the pub. The customers will vote with their feet. Likewise, if it chooses to allow smoking, those who object can go elsewhere. This is what markets are about, surely?

Despite what the anti-smoking brigade may say, the evidence against secondary smoking is flimsy to non-existent. They say- what about Roy Castle? Didn't he die of lung cancer?
Yes he did. And yes he did work in smoky clubs a long time ago. But so did I. Both my parents smoked and the smoke hung in a cloud in the living room. You could taste it. However, I'm still here and still healthy. My dad died of cancer and yes he was a smoker. Did smoking kill him? I don't think so. When he was a young man he worked on the railway and they used to lag the boilers of the engines with asbestos. He told me they used have snowball fights with the stuff. That's more likely to be the reason.

I'm against a blanket ban on smoking because I believe that the individual should have the right to choose. I don't believe for one moment that the state has any right to impose bans like this. Prohibition didn't work and this won't work either.

I live next door to a pub. Before the ban you'd never know it was there. Since the ban, the noise from the beer garden and smoking shelter disturbs the peace- my peace. What do I do? Do I complain about the noise? If I do and he closes down as a result, then I'm just part of the problem instead of part of the solution.

I'm a musician and my livelihood has been affected by the ban. Pubs are closing at an alarming rate. If I do get a booking then I play to a half full room, because the audience are outside smoking. The ban is hurting the entertainment industry but we must shut up and lump it.

Soon they are saying that they will ban smoking in the home. Surely that's my decision, not the government's?

Meanwhile Nick Hogan is in jail- as a lesson to others. He has no income and no way of paying his fine. His wife can't get to see him. If you feel strongly about this, please go to Old Holborn's site
http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/
where you can donate to pay his fine. It now stands at over £2000.
And lobby your MP

The lessons from history

A friend sent me a email with this message. The sad lesson we learn from history is that we never learn the lessons from history. I'm printing it in full and I hope you will read it and if your agree, let others know.


A German's View on Islam
A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II,
owned a number of large industries and estates.
When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care.
I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools.
So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen.
Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'

We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.
Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide.
It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave.
It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque.
It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.

The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.

China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:

Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up,
because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun. 
 
 Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.

As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts--the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on - before it's too late.

Farage Rules!!

I know other bloggers have posted this, but it deserves to be seen. Here's UKIP's Nigel Farage asking the question that's on everyone's lips



And thanks to Wrinkled Weasel, here's part of what he said
"I don't want to be rude, but you know, really, you have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low grade bank clerk."
To loud protests, Mr Farage continued: "The question that I want to ask and that we are all going to ask is: who are you? I had never heard of you; nobody in Europe had ever heard of you. I would like to ask you, Mr President: who voted for you? And what mechanism - I know democracy is not popular with you lot - what mechanism do the peoples of Europe have to remove you? Is this European democracy?"
"Sir, you have no legitimacy in this job at all, and I can say with confidence that I can speak on behalf of the majority of the British people in saying: we do not know you, we do not want you, and the sooner you are put out to grass, the better."

Atta boy. Go get em.