INEPTOCRACY – A DEFINITION
Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) – a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
Where were you when I was burned and broken
While the days slipped by from my window watching
And where were you when I was hurt and I was helpless
Because the things you say and the things you do surround me
While you were hanging yourself on someone else’s words
Dying to believe in what you heard
I was staring straight into the shining sun
Lost in thought and lost in time
While the seeds of life and the seeds of change were planted
Outside the rain fell dark and slow
While I pondered on this dangerous but irresistible pastime
I took a heavenly ride through our silence
I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life
I took a heavenly ride through our silence
I knew the waiting had begun
And I headed straight..into the shining sun.
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view—
Here is an interesting idea to think about (and act upon?)…unless you’ve already received the same message independently!
Please see what you think and pass it on if you agree with it.
We are hitting £129.9 a litre in some areas now and soon we will be faced with paying £1.50 per litre. So Philip Hollsworth offered this good idea:
This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the ‘don’t buy petrol on a certain day campaign’ that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn’t continue to hurt ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work.
Please read it and join in!
Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS – not sellers control the market place. With the price of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come down is if we hit someone in the pocket by not purchasing their petrol! And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here’s the idea:
For the rest of this year DON’T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest oil companies (which now are one) i.e. ESSO and BP.
If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of Esso and BP petrol buyers. It’s really simple to do!!
Now, don’t wimp out on me at this point… keep reading and I’ll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!
I am sending this note to a lot of people. If all of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)….and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) … and so on. By the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it…..
THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!
Again, all YOU have to do is send this to 10 people. That’s all (and not buy at ESSO/BP). How long would all that take? If each of us sends this email out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on.
PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES It’s easy to make this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your petrol at Shell,Asda,Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons, Jet etc. i.e. Boycott BP and Esso
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Its a cold blowy night up at the house. The worst storm of the year is at its peak and the map opposite is current. Wow it dont half get blowy up here in the hills 
.
This is a wee story I heard as a child and told to my son this morning after shouting failed to get him up but giving him back his quilt worked just fine.
“I am stronger than you,” said the North Wind to the Sun.
“That is not true,” said the Sun. “Everyone knows that I am the stronger.”
“Show me that you are stronger than I,” replied the North Wind. “You know very well that you are not.”
“Do you see that traveler coming? I can make him take off his coat. You can not,” said the Sun.
“We will see about that,” answered the North Wind. “The one that makes the traveler take off his coat is the victor.” “All right,” said the Sun, “and you may have the first trial.”
“Whew! How the North Wind blows,” said the traveler. “Whew! whew! Hold on there, North Wind; I would rather walk than fly. Whew! whew! “How cold it is! I must button my coat uptight. Whew! whew! whew! I never felt such a wind before,” said the traveler, as he folded his arms over his breast. “It seems determined to tear off my coat. I will turn my back to it. Whew! whew! whew! whew!” But the more the wind blew, the tighter the traveler held on to his coat.
At last the North Wind said, “I will try no longer, but you, Sun, can do no better.”
The Sun said nothing, but came out from under a cloud and smiled down upon the traveler.
“How good that feels!” said the traveler.
The Sun shone on. “It is getting warm,” said the traveler, unbuttoning his coat.
It was now past noon. “The Sun is too much for me,” said the traveler, and he threw off his coat and hunted for a shady place.
The North Wind’s harshness had failed. The Sun’s gentleness had won.
In recent weeks in the news I have begun to hear a new word bandied around. Everyone claims to be it. Of course not everybody can be it.
This word is “progressive”.
Everyone seems to be claiming to be progressive. At first I saw it as a roundabout way of saying that something is a step in the right direction but then I got to thinking. Who gets to say what is the right direction.
The word is used everywhere and seemingly in every debate nowadays to justify one course of action over the other or to vaunt one taxation policy over another. Surely they cant all be right? Is it even good to be progressive? If it is then why isnt there just one party called the progressive party which everyone loves and votes for religiously.
It turns out that progressivism is a little less gleaming than the current zeitgeist would have you believe…
Wikipedia describes it as this.
Now this muddys the waters even further.
If progressivism is to all intents and purposes liberalism then what on earth is going on in a country where the traditional vote has been polarised to one or other side of the political spectrum?
I’d venture a fairly simple answer to this little puzzle.
What we are seeing is a fight over the middle ground that the kingmakers, (LibDem) occupy in an unashamed attempt by both ends of the political spectrum to either cosy up to them in order to cement the coalition or drive a wedge into the coalition by showing just how far from being progressive they have strayed.
So, next time you hear the word “progressive” being used by a suit on the news dont believe the hype. The landscape has changed now and the ways that they compete are subtle and wily.
Unless you voted LibDem, progressive is not what you voted for.
So, its world cup time again.
I can more or less remember where I was during most of the world cups that have taken place through my life. Well, its fair to say I more clearly remember those world cups that Scotland qualified for but anything like that is a bit of a distant memory now. World cups in recent history seem to merge into a fog of “its coming home” mixed with the tune of “three lions” and a stiff measure of “penalty disappointment”.
But something else seems to rise up in my consciousness at times like this and it is the unfortunate spectacle of Scottish anti english (ism).
Now, I may not exactly be the best person to comment on this phenomenon having worked with english people for most of my life and having also lived in England for a large chunk of my life but to me, the phenomenon is nothing short of embarrasing.
Before I go any further let me just make clear who I am. I am a Scot. I am someone who is very proud to be a Scot and believes wholeheartedly that we Scots have a heritage of which we can rightly be proud.
When I was little I was brought up to understand that being Scottish is something to be extremely proud of. To be Scottish is to be the living embodiment of a proud, strong people for whom strength and honour means as much as it did to the Romans. My father gave me a book called “Kidnapped” by Robert Louis Stevenson when I was little and I read it cover to cover and more than once. It wasnt difficult to be proud of my past when presented with this sort of provenance.
Over the intervening years however, I have learned that being Scottish comes with certain responsibilities as well as the rights inherent in being proud of such a past. I have learned that it is my responsibility to hate the english and to wish them failure in every venture they may undertake. Nowadays that usually means sporting events as it is one of the few remaining areas where the distinction is meaningfully made.
Well Im sorry but I refuse. I have always refused, and now I feel like its time for me to speak out in my own small way. Who the hell are we if the only contribution we have to make to what could and should be a healthy rivalry and a desire to be the best between England and Scotland; who the hell are we if all we can do is carp and snipe and wish “them” ill when the only reason for this is that we have came up short yet again?
Who the hell are we if we are now to be defined by this pathetic image of yet another glaikit awkward scot proclaiming through an inane grin that he will be supporting “anyone but England”
Tonight in South Africa, it is the eve of what is arguably the biggest sporting tournament on earth. Many of the biggest sporting nations on earth will be represented. Some may not be, but the parish of Scotland, for that is what a parochial attitude turns us into, will once again be carping from the sidelines in a negative, jealous, snide chorus of anti-English jealous inferiority. For me, this is just not good enough. This does not represent the Scotland that my Dad brought me up to be proud of. This does not engender in our impressionable young people, the drive and need to put Scotland back onto this global map. Rather it perpetuates the decline into obscurity that no Scot can deny is already well and truly under way.
So come on Scotland, lets stop embarrasing ourselves. Lets see this as an example of what our country should aspire to. Lets learn to support our neighbours with at least some semblance of grace instead of acting like a jealous child who isnt getting to play. Lets channel our energies into making Scotland great again rather than trying to hope England become as crap as we are.
I for one will be hoping England can win the world cup and I ask ya….. who the hell are we if we cant celebrate the achievement of our closest neighbours? Comments?
