Daft Dave in Davos: Is there something in the air in Davos or is it just that vile Swiss drink that is moving 'Dim Dave' further into the incoherence of being 'Daft Dave'? He complains about the EU threatening to inflict their tax rates on British companies but then rushes around trying to get international agreements on tax rates for companies. Happily, Starbucks has just given him a kick in the pistes, as it were, by warning him that if he goes on slagging them off then they will take their business elsewhere. I think the term Starbucks coffee is an oxymoron and I wouldn't even take a sip if I was dying of thirst but in this instance I'm their cheerleader.
How old do you have to be to play Macbeth? 'Gildas the Monk' poses the question in the course of his excellent review of 'Les Mis' over at Anna Raccoon's place. Apparently, 'Dear Larry' thought an actor had to be at least 40 before attempting the role, saying:
“When you’re a young man, Macbeth is a character part. When you’re older, it’s a straight part.”
From my own less than distinguished experience I would agree because, as I point out in the comments, I am very conscious of the fact that the older I get the more sympathy I feel for that daft old coot, King Lear.
Is it time time to bomb North Korea? Yes, yes, I know, a little drastic, you might feel, a bit OTT, but the fact is that they are jam-packed full of nuclear weapons, plus a few other nasties, I would guess, and it is becoming increasingly obvious that the entire leadership is crazier than a box of frogs! The old, worn out saying about so-and-so 'living on a different planet' is actually true when it come to North Korea. How dangerous is a country where paranoia is the norm? If the Chinese are in fact the new swaggering kid on the block let them prove it by sorting out the loopy-loos in Pyong-Yang.
Sticking CO2 back up the arse of the 'warmers'! Being of a cruel and insensitive nature, I have been enjoying myself over at 'Deltoid' ramming home the fact of a huge increase in CO2 emissions over the past 15 years which has failed to result in any increase in global temperatures. Instead of a quiet acceptance and an admission that perhaps they should look again at what exactly is the strength of CO2 as a forcing agent on global temps, all I get is, er, well, denials. But . . . but . . . I'm supposed to be the 'denier' - the bastards are stealing my lines!
The anti-Reagan gets ready for a final 4-year burst: I could weep! America, oh, America, why did you do it? Well, never mind that, what is done is done and you and your descendents 'unto the fifth generation' will have to live with it - and pay for it. As 'The Kraut' hammers home with his impeccable judgment:
After all, Obama had unveiled his transformational agenda in his very first address to Congress four years ago (February 24, 2009). It was, I wrote at the time, “the boldest social-democratic manifesto ever issued by a U.S. president.”Nor was it mere talk. Obama went on to essentially nationalize health care, which is 18 percent of the U.S. economy — after passing an $833 billion stimulus that precipitated an unprecedented expansion of government spending. Washington now spends 24 percent of GDP, fully one-fifth higher than the postwar norm of 20 percent.
But, as 'that woman' told the greatest president of the 20th century, "You ain't seen nothing yet!" 'The Kraut' spells it out in grim detail:
Monday’s inaugural address reinstated yet another grand Obama project — healing the planet. It promised a state-created green-energy sector, massively subsidized (even as the state’s regulatory apparatus systematically squeezes fossil fuels, killing coal today, shale gas tomorrow).The playbook is well known. As Czech president (and economist) Václav Klaus once explained, environmentalism is the successor to failed socialism as justification for all-pervasive rule by a politburo of experts. Only now, it acts in the name of not the proletariat but the planet.
If he kills shale gas then he will have inflicted a worse blow on America than Hirohito and Hitler combined because at least WWII galvanised American industry as will shale gas if it is left to progress. And it's no good Americans complaining, they voted for it and now they are going to get it:
Obama is the apostle of the ever-expanding state. His speech was an ode to the collectivity. But by that he means only government, not the myriad of voluntary associations — religious, cultural, charitable, artistic, advocacy, ad infinitum — that are the glory of the American system.For Obama, nothing lies between citizen and state. It is a desert, within which the isolated citizen finds protection only in the shadow of Leviathan. Put another way, this speech is the perfect homily for the marriage of Julia — the Obama campaign’s atomized citizen, coddled from cradle to grave — and the state.
No effort will be made by Obama and his cohorts to deal with the fiscal problems as the national debt races up to the $20 trillion level. They will follow the European model and spend and spend and spend in order to establish their socialism and then they will set it in concrete and dare anyone to undo it.
A cheerful post-script to all you grandparents from Ogden Nash:
Come on in, the Senility is Fine
People live forever in Jacksonville and St. Petersburg and Tampa,
But you don't have to live forever to become a grampa.
The entrance requirements for grampahood are comparatively mild,
You only have to live until your child has a child.
From that point on you start looking both ways over your shoulder,
Because sometimes you feel thirty years younger and sometimes thirty years older.
Now you begin to realize who it was that reached the height of imbecility,
It was whoever said that grandparents have all the fun and none of the responsibility.
This is the most enticing spiderwebs of a tarradiddle ever spun,
Because everybody would love to have a baby around who was no responsibility and lots of fun,
But I can think of no one but a mooncalf or a gaby
Who would trust their own child to raise a baby.
So you have to personally superintend your grandchild from diapers to pants and from bottle to spoon,
Because you know that your own child hasn't sense enough to come in out of a typhoon.
You don't have to live forever to become a grampa, but if you do want to live forever,
Don't try to be clever;
If you wish to reach the end of the trail with an uncut throat,
Don't go around saying Quote I don't mind being a grampa but I hate being married to a gramma Unquote.
Ogden Nash