Opposition oblocutors obscurantism...

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Obloquy n. - abuse; disgrace. Oblocutor, n. one who denies or disputes. [Luciferous Logolepsy: 'dragging obscure words into the light of day']

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"But the real hypocrisy appears to lie with the Labour Party, who are throwing personal abuse about like confetti and even make the outrageous claim that changes will lead to the 'cleansing' of poor people from the better parts of London."

The 2010 Labour Party manifesto: "Housing Benefit will be reformed so we do not subsidise people to live in private sector accomodation on rents working families couldn't afford"...this manifesto was written by Ed Miliband!

Source: Peter Black
hat-tip: Order-order. ("The barefaced hypocrisy is breathtaking")

Oak-observing "official"...

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Today - or more precisely this evening after sundown - is Halloween, which begins what is for many one of the holiest times of the year: also known as All Hallow's Eve, it leads into All Saints Day, a Holy Day of Obligation in turn leading into All Souls Day / Day of the Dead / el Dia de Los Muertos / Dia dos Fieis Defuntos (Brazil and Portugal).

Today is also Samhain Eve, the first day of Samhain, a pagan festival meaning 'end of summer' (or assembly/gathering depending on what etymology is used) and is dedicated to the harvest and ancestors and Death; it is considered by most Wiccans to be the most important of their 'greater Sabbats' (Wiccan Wheel of the Year).

Today, Druids can mark the festival with added spirit because it's the first Samhain after becoming a recognised official religion: "Earlier this month, the Charities Commission ruled that the Druid Network should have the same status as other faiths such as Christianity and Islam" (how many centuries/millennia late?).

Druid..."Based on all available forms, the hypothetical proto-Celtic word may then be reconstructed as *dru-wid-s (pl. *druwides) meaning "oak-knower". The two elements go back to the Proto-Indo-European roots *deru- and *weid- "to see". The sense of "oak-knower" (or "oak-seer") is confirmed by Pliny the Elder" [Wiki].

Oban offensive...

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A Labour Party offensive...in more ways that one. At Labour's Scottish conference in Oban Harriet Harman has called the Coalition's Chief Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander a 'ginger rodent'. FFS!

The last couple of weeks has seen a series of shrieking harpies (not Harriet): Jon Cruddas accusing the Tories of "social and economic cleansing", Polly Toynbee's "final solution" for the poor comments, Tristram Hunt's belief that the Coalition was taking Britain back to the Victorian workhouses, Unite Leftie Len McCluskey barking about "the vicious Tory determination to make the poor suffer" (won't even mention bumbling Boris's contribution)...but now we have Harriet's insulting and detrimental comments (imagine her saying that about skin colour or a certain religion?) and she went on to complain about the 'unnatural' genetic mutation programme about how the Lib Dems being changed "into something alien to Scotland - Tories." [BBC]

Scottish Liberal Democrat George Lyon asked - rightly - were there any depths that Labour Party wouldn't stoop to,

"They aren't fit to be in opposition, let alone in government."

All that said it does seem that, Boris aside, the left are ramping up the rhetoric and idealogical hyperbole. Are battle lines being drawn? Are they actively seeking the civil unrest seen in France that, IMHO, many media commentators seem eager for?

Update: HH has since apologised (the BBC link has been updated with this news). Great riposte HERE from DA: "...rodents do valuable work cleaning up mess others leave behind..."

Stunned...RIP Witanagemot

Toque has written about the demise: RIP Witanagemot

"Due to an ongoing smear campaign against me by Steve Uncles of the English Democrats Party the Witanagemot Club (latterly the English Free Press) is hereby ended, I would like to thank all members, past and present, for their involvement."

Hopefully a new site will be set up linked to Campaign for an English Parliament (CEP)

Oberhausen octopus obituary...

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Prediction phenomenon Pulpo Paul passes peacefully: I hope all the attention and the fame didn't get him too overstressed and play a part in his passing, probably not as Stefan Porwoll of the Oberhausen Sea Life Centre in Germany said that "Paul appeared to have died peacefully of natural causes during the night." [Guardian]

"His success made him almost a bigger story than the World Cup itself,"... ..."We may decide to give Paul his own small burial plot within our grounds and erect a modest permanent shrine."

A cephalopod cenotaph...

Ocracy organogram...

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Do you own a cinema-sized computer screen? Maybe an internet enabled 60 inch plasma/HD? You'll need it..."Behold, the 'Organogram of Government'" [story] [organogram]

Omnivor's oblectation...

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All the recent talk of spending cuts takes a break to talk of some nicer cuts...Pamela Anderson Shows That All Animals Have the Same [air-brushed] Parts (click on image to enlarge). In this new ad for PETA, Pam-not-ham has been tagged like the images we see when noting cuts of meat: the idea being to show that humans and animals are composed of identical parts. Not sure about you but it just makes me want to enjoy a juicy bit of meat. hmmmmmm...

Occasional obeisance...

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Today, in many parts of the Anglosphere, is Mole Day...not quite what you think: not the mouldywarp (dirt tosser**), not the common intradermal nevus, not the spy and not the breakwater (amongst other things). This mole day is one of those "science" days based on the written date (e.g. Pi Day on March 14 in US month/day format is 3/14) and on Mole Day the time comes into play too: on October 23 from 6:02 in the morning; making the date 6:02 10/23; the time and date making Avogadro's number, which is approximately 6.02×1023, defining the number of particles (atoms or molecules) in one mole of substance...still with me? The name 'mole' from the German unit Mol, (probably from Molekül) was coined by the German chemist Wilhelm Ostwald. In the USA this makes up part of National Chemistry Week.

"Everything you hear, see, smell, taste, and touch involves chemistry and chemicals (matter). And hearing, seeing, tasting, and touching all involve intricate series of chemical reactions and interactions in your body. With such an enormous range of topics, it is essential to know about chemistry at some level to understand the world around us."

Chemistry is probably one of the best subjects to learn - it was certainly one of my favourites - because most of the time it's all about DOING stuff.

** Off topic but did you know the name given to a group of the blind, bug-eating dirt tossers is a labour? LOL!

OECD outlook...

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Fucking A! It may be just a "greener economy" tit-for-tat payoff but the support is welcome.

Update: Also there has been blanket coverage by the BBC and Guardian trumpeting of the IFS "poorest hit hardest" version of events (entirely expected I guess) that other interpretations aren't getting much of a look-in. Mark Littlewood at the Institute of Economic Affairs says that the IFS has made "a woeful contribution to the debate".

"The Institute for Fiscal Studies has done itself – and the wider public debate about the Comprehensive Spending Review – a considerable disservice over the last twenty four hours... ...Far from illuminating discussion about the coalition’s fiscal policy, the IFS has seemingly attempted to reduce moral – not merely economic – considerations to the status of a bar chart... ...The Institute has walked straight into a trap – partly, though not wholly of its own making – of equating a progressive change to tax and benefits with 'fairness'"

"It is hard to know where to begin in exposing the inanity of this proposition.".

[IEA Home]

Opposing opposition III...

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I like Left Foot Forward. It's interesting and often enjoyable, and to some extent I agree. However, click on the "About" tab and you'll see their 'Mission' where they claim:

"We are a non-aligned blog. Because we are progressive and because of the aims we're committed to, we often find ourselves in agreement with left of centre policies and politicians. But we are focused purely on the quality of policies and furthering progressive goals, rather than on promoting individual politicians and parties."

Now look at the image of a recent award...TOP Left Wing blog...hmmm; look at the the right hand sidebar of their blog: the tables of what they are "fighting for" ('Sustainable economy', 'Public services for all', 'Good society' and 'Multilateral foreign policy') and what they are fighting against ('Greed and corruption', 'Old politics', 'Media manipulation' and 'Racism and extremism'). Now, strange as it may seem, but everything they were were fighting for New Labour was trouncing or destroying and everything they are fighting against is precisely what typifies Blair, Brown and New Labour - to a T - yet here we have the top leftwing blog that has been nigh on 100% behind Labour yet claiming to be non-aligned; the clue is in the name, I know, but please stop the pretence: you're a left-luvvie cheerleader, admit it. Change your mission.

Overdressed? Or overvalued...

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Oh good Lord: the best kept secret in luxury lingerie is out...but not all the way. Victoria's Secret has revealed, after three months of waiting - apparently - the Fantasy Miracle Bra, worn here by Brazilian model Adriana Lima (IMHO not the best of her pictures). The brilliant bra, valued at 2 MILLION Dollars/Euros/whatever was created by designers Itelieni Damiani and includes the odd topaz and sapphire amongst 2,000 diamonds and 18 carat white gold.

Wouldn't you love to get your hands on them...I mean it. Apparently Adriana says she kicks her butt into high gear - making sure everything she does is healthy - to get into shape; her workouts are skipping and boxing, where she can use her bodyweight instead of machines. Pass the tissue. Click to enlarge...the image!

Update: "Dyslexic man walks into a bra"...ROFL. 3rd in top 50 jokes...P.S. not sure if that's his but Tommy Cooper (Comedy God) is credited with 13 of the top 50 best jokes.

P.P.S. jokes 6,7 and 8...I think I just wet myself (booze helps...and it's nearly 3 am.)

Offering optimism, opportunity...

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"This evening we have come here to celebrate a great leader who championed a profound idea. That idea was freedom. At home and abroad, she expanded the boundaries of freedom – and sculpted a legacy that spans generations and crosses party lines..."

"...This evening, I speak as more than an admirer of Margaret Thatcher. I speak as a person grateful for the opportunities this nation has given me – and the opportunities she has created for every other individual in Great Britain."

"...And we cannot forget that she is no ideologue, but a person of pragmatism, an optimist whose optimism is founded in her faith in the individual."

"Hers is a generous spirit, a spirit based in an appreciation of personal potential and not of an impersonal ideology. As she said: 'With all due respect to the drafters of the American Declaration of Independence, all men and women are not created equal, at least in regard to their characters, abilities and aptitudes.'"

Rupert Murdoch's inaugural Margaret Thatcher lecture [HERE...at The Guardian!]

Obvoluting observations...

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England expects...today is Trafalgar Day

An apple a day...today is Apple Day

Sometimes what appears bad or uninviting is in fact the best course: despite fruit not being a usual impulse-buy or particularly "exciting" - especially among children - they are so good for us in many ways.

Sometimes our greatest defences don't at first appear as such: interestingly, after the Battle of Trafalgar the opposition declared that "The English fleet is annihilated"! Such is propaganda after such a decisive action.

Update: Oh, by the way, just in case you missed the parallels: overall spending by the UK government over the period of this parliament will fall - as predicted - but only by maybe a whole 3% in real terms (at worst). This is the same level of spending as in 2008...so why all the hyperbole, lies and abuse?

Some might say George Osborne should have gone further.

Update 2: say it again, loud and clear: For the avoidance of doubt, Repeat after me: "total public spending (Total Managed Expenditure) in 2014-15 will be higher in real terms than in 2008-09". How do they get away with this? "Even after these spending cuts, total public spending ... will be higher ". By any real world definition, these cannot be cuts." [EU Referendum]

Update 3: Just in case some dumb fuck hasn't got it: then please remember where the deficit came from [please]

Osborne...

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Impressive display and content...Brown still missing.

First impressions: More for less; "Sanity and stability"! All Spending Review details at HM Treasury.

Owing, owing owed...

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Worth highlighting time and again: The Real National Debt: A Decade of Reckless Growth. A new report by the TaxPayers' Alliance "reveals the true extent of UK national debt":

• At the end of 2009-10 the real national debt stood at £7.9 trillion, over £300,000 for every single household in Britain
• During the last decade debt has more than tripled, soaring from 230 per cent of GDP (£2.3 trillion) up to 560 per cent of GDP (£7.9 trillion)
• Official national debt (quoted by the Chancellor in his budget) hugely underestimates taxpayer liabilities
• Relative to GDP this is by far the biggest national debt we have ever had since records began

Source: Taxpayers' Alliance Full report (pdf): HERE

Also interesting to read the notes to editors at the end of that article, presumably because we are not being told by the MSM, the BBC won't tell you; we are getting "immune" to the consequences and fail to understand/take-in the problem: "Large numbers can be difficult to imagine; £1 trillion = £1,000 billion; £1 billion = £1,000 million". That and the confusion, sometimes intentional, of failing to distinguish the fact that the "national debt is the total amount of money the UK Government currently owes. This is different to the national deficit, which is the amount of money UK Government spends in excess of income. Each year we run a deficit, the national debt grows. Britain has been running a national deficit for the past 9 years" and that all-in-all it is "not merely the huge scale of the national debt that is cause for concern, but also the rate at which it is increasing."

Overrunning otters...

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Not wanting to bad mouth the good news that the otter populations have recovered and are "back from the brink of extinction" (some areas at maximum capacity levels) but it is reported that the "Where once the population may have been as low as a few hundred, it is now thought to run into thousands". Yet HERE in the we're told that "Since July 2007 CUOP have taken otters from the whole of England and Wales, and have so far examined over a thousand otters from all over the UK, predominantly killed in road traffic accidents" (my emphasis). If over a thousand have been roadkill in a few years, why are the numbers only "thought" to run into thousands?

Update (about 5 minutes later!): maybe I misread it, or it's badly written and that it's really 'over a thousand' since 1992...mind you, over a thousand in 15 years is still a massive number if the population was considered "as low as a few hundred".

Outing over-hypers...

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The BBC seem to very keen on bigging-up the cuts, on every news programme every day there seems to be at least some mention of the evil and woe the 'savage' cuts will have but very little castigation of who is the cause of WHY cuts are necessary: the bald, jug-eared, media whore HERE for example. They are labour luvvies through and through. I hope their coverage gets more and more scrituny; let's see what they say on Wednesday after Osborne sets out his stall in the spending review. However...

"As we approach the comprehensive spending review, it is worth reflecting on the scale of the mess left by Labour. Labour’s mismanagement of the economy means that this year the UK will be borrowing £109bn that has nothing to do with the recession...." [Link]

The modest cuts are merely CORRECTING THE SPENDING BINGE; they are, says Tim Morgan for the Centre for Policy Studies, "A shower, not a hurricane" [Pdf] He explains that New Labour was in office during a decade of irresponsible excess and that to understand why cuts are essential now we must understand where Blair and Brown went wrong.

"To understand this issue, policy-makers and the broader public need to be fully aware that the economic history of the UK (and of many other western countries) over the last decade has been a chapter of excess, on the part of individuals, businesses and government alike."

Nobody can deny this. In that paper Tim "demonstrates that so vast is the scale of Government spending following 13 years of profligacy that, relatively speaking, the proposed spending cuts are actually quite modest overall. They merely involve reversing, over five years, a comparatively small part of the enormous increases which took place in the previous decade.". So says George Trefgarne on "The true scale of the cuts".

Oncoming oligophagous options...

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Oligophagous, adj. - eating a few sorts of food only.

In Venezuela, having only a few sorts of food is the likely future: hot on the heels of the Agroisleña (now to be called Agropatria, no really!) takeover last week Hugo showed yesterday that the trend continues when he announced, again on 'Aló, Presidente' a similar takeover of Fertinitro. This nationalization, said Chavez, would achieve "real and effective implementation of national plans for planting and production made necessary by the Executive and Socialist Plan for Agricultural and Food Sovereignty". Very Stalinesque. Interesting then, that  back in 2005, after "sabotage" of the oil and petrochemical industry, Crusty decreed the creation of Pequiven, parent company of Fertinitro, the precise aim of which was to meet domestic demand for fertilizer and boost the "National Sowing Plan" (ahem)...a program that "advances the Bolivarian Government". Yep, next week he announces record harvest and tractor production stats!

I've also just seen another sad tale, I had visited this farm, look what has become of it. I know similar tales in other farms I have visted and worked on. I hope deananash doesn't mind me copying here most of his - the first on that blogpost - comment:

""A picture is truly worth a thousand words." When one steals a man's work (production), it is morally equivalent to 'killing' him – at least in terms of the amount of time it took him to produce whatever was stolen...

Every theft by this government is the moral equivalent to murdering its citizens. Only in this case, it’s death by a thousand cuts.

And EVERYONE is going to pay."

Oh Obama...

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Poor old Obama: things aren't going so well, in fact the future looks decidedly black bleak. The Republicans are making gains to such an extent that if Gallup's astonishing numbers are anywhere near accurate, "we could be looking at a GOP victory in the House of Representatives of absolutely historic proportions, a scenario frightening enough to give even the most seasoned Obama White House adviser nightmares" says Nile Gardiner at the DT. I guess Obama could live with that, even with the fact that the 'Senate now hangs in the balance' and, as we know, the 'economic figures are grim'. BUT....what he won't be able to accept is that "nearly 25 percent of Democrats now believe 'a return to Bush's policies would be good" and that Bush, almost invisble since the presidential election, is now almost level-pegging with Obama in terms of who is/was the better president. LOL! More bad news HERE as on the White House staff exodus, which "exposes Obama to charges of disarray".

P.S. Enjoyable Yank vs. Yank hoohah going on in the comments of Nile's article.

P.P.S. Maybe this is why. (hehe)

P.P.P.S.How? Eleven foreign countries have joined the US Justice Department's lawsuit against Arizona over the state's recent immigration law. WTF?!!!

Oh O2...

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Today, at 10:10 on 10/10/10 I was breakfasting in Quito. I'm late to 'splattergate', being in several countries on the other side of the world for the last few weeks means I haven't really been reducing my carbon footprint much...hopefully with all my recycling and lack of footprint at home I can avoid being killed by eco-fascists and terrorists.

Richard Curtis is the man behind the 10:10 "No Pressure" mini-movie that has caused outrage in many circles. Credit to Grumpy Old Twat for the image (left) and for the link to Curtis giving his insight into the making of the splattergate final solution. FFS!

Officially over 000,000,000,000...

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The recently published ONS info shows that after Q1 "2010 general government debt was £1000.4 billion, equivalent to 71.3 per cent of GDP." So, that's the good news; unfortunately official figures understate the UK government's real debts:

"By the time you've added in unfunded public sector pensions, accrued unfunded state pension liabilities, PFI, Network Rail, etc etc, the real National Debt stands at over £5 trillion. And that's without counting the liabilities of our bailed out nationalised banks, which currently stand at around £2.5 trillion."

So, around SEVEN TRILLION, give or take a few bob. BOM: "How can we ever escape?"

Overshadowing overshadowing...

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Thought I'd catch up on the week's politicking, I'm a bit behind what's been going on but not enough to not notice a marked difference in the BBC [online] news coverage of the Conservative conference compared to their coverage of the Labour one but - apart from that - I wanted to see "the enemy": the new UK Shadow Cabinet: all served under Brown, nearly half were privately educated and the only non-white (at first glance) seems to be this fucking disgrace who IMHO shouldn't be allowed anywhere near power, priviledge or other people's money.**

That bad taste-in-the-mouth aside, I am enjoying the brewing storm (at least in the blog's I read!) re the teacher who spoke at Tory conference and has since been "sent home". Well worth reading Cranmer and the multiple comments there:

"How does a deputy headteacher who has blown the whistle on a sclerotic culture of excuses, criticised low standards, derided arbitrary targets and league tables, disparaged political correctness and poured scorn over the pervasive 'leftist ideology' in state education ever again command the respect of a staffroom populated with pathological Socialists?"

His Grace adds, speaking of the Headteacher whom has suspended the 'outed' Tory Conference speaking teacher, that the '(Executive) Headteacher you can perhaps forgive: she too is a victim' but imagine my surprise [not!] to discover that Dizzy has found out...

"...[that] her fate is in the hand of Dr Irene Bishop, the "executive head teacher" of St Michael and All Angels Academy.

Might this be the same Dr Irene Bishop who was head teacher at St Saviour's and St Olave's in 2001, when the school was used as the launchpad of the Labour 2001 general election campaign?" [some teachers are more equal than others?]

**I'm not bothered at all where they were eduacted, if it was public or private, what colour their skin is, what gender or what sexual preferences they have; I just thought they might try to at least be a little bit different. Seems there are at least 4 or 5 sticks they could have tried to beat the government with but now can't.

Hat-tip Iain Dale (with a video of the speech, which I think is good except that Katharine uses one of my pet hates, "kids" instead of children: "our kids" "my kids"...grrrrr)

Update 3am: that's the trouble with playing catch-up with the news! Good news: Katharine Birbalsingh has "been told that she would be allowed to return to the classroom on Monday after parents voiced their support." [DT]

Overtaking oficial 'oligopoly'...

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Another step towards the inevitable...continuing the downward Destructive Spiral: earlier this week Crusty confirmed what he had told the public on Sunday, that the government has made official the seizure of the omnipresent farming supply company Agroisleña. Crusty told us that "One of the short-term impacts of the measure is the immediate reduction of production costs, because we are going to eliminate the chain of speculative middlemen" when in reality it will put thousands of small-holders and farmers out of business and exacerbate the food shortages.

One wonders if it has anything to do with the fact that Chavez probably has 100% of farmers/small-holders/producers against him and that Agroisleña supplied 70% of the sector's agricultural chemicals...(see comments last night on that Devil's Excrement blogpost); more interesting insight on the same Veneconomy editorial from Daniel, whose earlier post mentioned that Chavez had "made his first real communist "economic" move" and "that the Agroisleña take over could actually wreck the banking system of Venezuela."

Obstructing obtrusive opening...

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You may have seen this before or maybe not:

"I am truly perplexed that so many of my friends are against a mosque being built near Ground Zero. I think it should be the goal of every American to be tolerant. The mosque should be allowed, in an effort to promote tolerance.

That is why I also propose that two nightclubs be opened next door to the mosque thereby promoting tolerance within the mosque. We could call one of the clubs (which would be gay) "The Turban Cowboy" and the other being a topless bar "You Mecca Me Hot".

Next door should be a butcher shop that specializes in pork and adjacent to that have an open barbeque pork rib restaurant, called something like " Iraq o' Ribs".

Across the street there could be a very daring lingerie store called Victoria Keeps Nothing Secret with sexy mannequins in the window modeling the goods.

Next door to the lingerie shop, there would be room for an Adult Toy Shop (Koranal Knowledge), its name in flashing neon lights, and on the other side a liquor store, maybe call it "Morehammered"?

Then the Muslims could be allowed to show their tolerance. Problem solved.

If you agree in promoting tolerance and you think this is a good plan, pass this on."

I do so I did. Nice names for the proposed bars and restaurants too!

[Related link]

Oddities II...

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Following on from the juicy fruit and veg I posted yesterday, I received this (image, left) last night; it could be one of those e-mail hoaxes but apparently it was in a San Francisco newspaper. The accompanying message I received was thought-provoking:

"Folks, just remember as you read this, this person probably drives and votes. AND, may have already reproduced..."

Appropriate that today is the Farm Animal Rights Movement's (FARM) World Farm Animals Day. The date was chosen as it is the International Day of Non-Violence observed today because 2nd October is the birth date of Mohandas Gandhi. Whatever, do you know what I like to get stuck into..?

Oddities?...

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Today, October 1st, is World Vegetarian Day: get your hands and mouth around some healthy fruit and veg: you know it's good for you and you know you really should just do it!

Update, nearly 2 hours later: I've just enjoyed 3 glasses of a very smooth Merlot whilst eating a salad including grated carrots, three types of lettuce and red onion, with a simple vinegarette dressing. Next a delicious plate of 'squashed' potatoes (cooked in their skin and mashed) with a roasted garlic sauce plus a plate of exquisitely roasted vegetables: red, green and yellow peppers, squash, onion and green zucchini...hhhmmmmmm...

...all garnishing a 16oz ribeye steak, cooked to perfection (running bloody inside)...hey, it's still only 9pm on the 30th September where I am!