nourishing obscurity

… on the first day of the working week, on All Hallows Eve and with the commercial Christmas grind just around the corner.    Three different versions which you’ve probably seen but I haven’t:

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Filed under: Music

It can’t be said that the MSM is actually ignoring it or the Turkish quake but they’re certainly not, in the online media, major issues.  Why not?  We’ve been through all this before.  Firstly, there is so much else happening, from the EU Referendum to the Euro to immigration and jobs.

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Filed under: Earth and cosmos, Society & human issues

The buffoon currently pretending to be our Prime Minister chose this record as one of his Desert Island Discs. Could someone please buy it for him and arrange to transport the pair of them as far away as possible. It looks to me as though it doesn’t require much grey matter to graduate from Oxford [...]

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Filed under: JD, Politics & economics

So here we are again and everything I have to say on it has already been said and that, in turn, links to other pages.  What we have is essentially an age old battle between the forces in the world represented by the pic above and those of the pic below.  Postmodernists may try to [...]

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Filed under: Religion & Philosophy

With all this car talk today, how about these old Soviet gems, all lovingly restored:

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Filed under: Chuckles, History & Culture, Humour, Technology & ideas

Gauntlet! Down!! Thrown!!! For the benefit of Mr B R G Higham, English gentleman. I present to you in the RED corner-

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Filed under: Art, JD

Is it racist to make jokes like this above?

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Filed under: Politics & economics, Society & human issues

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15424323 It is a matter of ongoing puzzlement to me that the Gaia worshippers have no problem with enormous and pointless direct subsidies of approved ‘renewable’ resources/energy, but are vehemently opposed to any form of subsidy for anything else, constantly decrying the huge subsidies given to ‘fossil fuels’. This article is typical of the genre, [...]

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Filed under: Chuckles, Politics & economics, Society & human issues

Art forgery is in the news again, this time with the trial in Germany of Wolfgang and Helene Beltracchi who were found guilty of forging and selling approximately 47 paintings by masters such as Max Ernst, Max Pechstein and Heinrich Campendonk. The Beltraccis’ “Red Picture with Horses” by Heinrich Campendonk failed a scientific authenticity test [...]

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Filed under: Art, JD

Twilight is from Oklahoma. Best we know how to pronounce that great state:

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Filed under: Chuckles, History & Culture, Humour

If you’re interested in clearing England’s name in its involvement in the opium trade, here’s your article [H/T Chuckles]

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Filed under: History & Culture

Economics Intelligence: However, as an avid cyclist (from John’s perspective: as a sansculotte of the bicycle lobby), I’m deeply disappointed in him. He recently published a rant against bike lanes in his home town New York City on his blog “Rational Irrationality”. His central argument is that bike lanes come at the expense of free parking. (Many [...]

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Filed under: Chuckles, Leisure, travel & sport, Society & human issues

Just how regulated should the economy be? All right, so I toddle down to St Pauls and speak through a megaphone to the protesters: “You’ve got the wrong targets, you oppressed persons, you. Your targets should include Marianne T. Poulsen and Erik Prince, not just Dimon, Geithner and Bernanke. How about Ambani, Adanis, Birla, Mittal? [...]

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Filed under: Politics & economics

With the World awash in ‘liquidity’ no one has seemed to notice that it’s all in the form of leverage or cheap debt, and not real capital or equity. Leveraged rates 13:1 – US banking system 23:1 – Japan 26:1 – EU 26:1 – France Financially, these levels, even a 4% drop in asset prices [...]

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Filed under: Chuckles, Politics & economics

And so it goes on and on in this bizarre Brave New World: Via QM: A soldier killed in Afghanistan had £433 deducted from his final pay because he had failed to complete “a full month’s” work.  Lance Corporal Jordan Bancroft, 25, was shot dead in Helmand province in August 2010. More than year later, [...]

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Filed under: Diversions, Humour, Politics & economics