New Year #FacePalm

Good one to start the new year in this mornings Metro (apologies for resolution; trying to take a picture on a moving bus of a thin page is tricky). Moaning about MP salaries whilst you earn nearly 40% above the average wage in this country sucking on the exact same teat as the rest of us is a little presumptive of sympathy right.

FFS you earn twice what I do in the private sector.

My thoughts? Last year I said we should give MPs the ability to moot their own compensation to their constituents at the ballot box who would then be directly liable to pay for them via a council tax levy; stick your desired salary on the ballot paper then convince potential constituents at hustings and hitting the streets. Simples.

Quote of the Day

Old but brilliant:

'I may not agree with what you say, but I'll bayonet every bastard on the planet who says you can't say it, and then I'll riddle their Stasi - Fascist - Anti-Freedom Corpse with bullets for your right to say it...' (I think that's how it went anyway)

Erudite as only the Skip Licker can be. Gawd I missed him...

Quote Of The Day (Goebbels Warmong Edition)

"We have used the best available data [and] the conclusion is that shale gas may indeed be quite damaging to global warming, quite likely as bad or worse than coal," he told BBC News.

- Robert Howarth from Cornell University in Ithaca, US on his report as reported here.

Yeah, I'm sure it's quite bad "to global warming"; you schills have been disabusing climate science of any credibility for decades.

Quote Of The Day

Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all it's myriads of inhabitants was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe...would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life...And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the sameease and tranquility, as if no such accident had happened...If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but...he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren.

Theory of Moral Sentiments, part 3-5 - Adam Smith

Say a prayer for those who suffer in places like Libya, Syria, Nigeria or the Arabs in Israel tonight; at least be thankful your elsewhere and you and your family are safe.

Quote of the Day

"LUNA: MILES, ERNO'S GOING
TO LEAD THE REVOLUTION
AND HEAD THE NEW GOVERNMENT.

MILES: LOOK, DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND ?
IN SIX MONTHS, WE'LL BE
STEALING ERNO'S NOSE.

POLITICAL SOLUTIONS DON'T WORK.
I TOLD YOU THAT.

IT DOESN'T MATTER
WHO'S UP THERE.

THEY'RE ALL TERRIBLE."

Woody Allen's penultimate deliberations in the movie Sleeper.

Atlas Shrugged Part 1: Abridged & Anglofied

"If this was a microcosm of the true state of this nation, God help us. It was clear to me that the majority of people paid to run things efficiently weren't bothered, while a stream of useless or patronising information was constantly relayed over tannoy systems to frustrated passengers. In spite of being entangled in a nightmare of regulations, warnings and idiotic announcements, most people remained robust and resilient, laughing at officials who, bound by more rules and regulations, were unable to adapt flexibly to a bad situation."

Discovered today via the good Dr. North is this gentleman Jim Greenhalf. You could almost see an annoying British director putting Hugh Grant in as the lead and have all the train staff making merry about the decline of the rail network.

Ye gods.

Quote Of The Day

But then, I've never been much taken with the myth of "military efficiency" - how those two words ever came to be linked is an ongoing mystery. Like every bureaucracy, there is good and bad, and that is what the Army is, first and foremost, a bureaucracy. Unfortunately, in my long and less than illustrious career, I have found that there is one constant in life: a bureaucracy is a means by which good men do evil.

The good Dr. North talking about a wronged man in an ocean of wronged men.

Quote Of The Day

"Anyone with good intentions is the traitor because being evil is the norm."

- Wael Ghonim, a Google marketing executive behind a Facebook page widely credited with starting the Egyptian protests.