The Big Freeze

God, I'm sick of the weather. Actually, not the weather, but the media coverage of it. Has anything else happened other than it being a bit snowy in the UK? Unremitting footage of closed schools, car accidents and empty salt depots (incidentally, it's rock salt, not grit). Endless shots of swaddled reporters standing in the High Streets of "cut off" villages (how did they get there if the villages are cut off, eh?) We don't need to see this - all we have to do is look out of our windows.

Although I was amused to hear stories of local authorities going on bended knee to one of the more reviled portions of the citizenry to beg for help. Yes, 4x4 owners, you aren't baby killers after all. At least, not for the next few days anyway.

Taxpayer's money for political parties.

The Labour Party are so useless at running their own finances that they've raised the idea of having taxpayer funding for political parties. This particularly loathsome idea creeps out from under a rock every few years although fortunately up until now it's always been promptly booted back under it again.

How about instead of stealing yet more money from the taxpayer, the Labour Party learn to run their finances sufficiently well such as to not need taxpayer's largesse? When you or I are short of a bob or two, we cut back. Turn the heating down. Cancel the Carribean holiday and go to Margate instead. Buy a smaller car. Sell an organ. What we do not do is go out and mug a few more old ladies to make up the difference. Or at least, that's what those of us who aren't lying criminals do. Surprise, surprise, the Labour Party are lying criminals!

I suspect that the only thing stopping them from this particular mugging is the thought that this means giving the BNP money, too. Members should pay for political parties, not taxpayers. And if there isn't enough money, tough titty.

Jonathan Ross

Jonathan Ross is leaving the Beeb. Good. Let's hope the tedious, talentless, lisping, giggling idiot isn't seen on TV ever again. Pity we can't get the (our) money back.

The Greens are right

But for all the wrong reasons. Yes, we're destroying our environment, exhausting the earth's resources, running an ecological debt we cannot repay. We're running out of food, water, living space, energy and places to put all the garbage that we create. We're fouling the oceans and atmosphere with our excreta. There's probably nowhere on the planet without its drift of plastic bottles and Q-tips.

But the answer isn't to go back to some mythical agrarian past where excessively clean smiling peasants with good teeth live in (imaginary) harmony with the world (after all, such lifestyles are actually grindingly hard work, nasty, brutish and short). And even if it were the answer, it's only going to work for a short time.

You see, the real problem is simply that there are too many of us. Malthus was right. Even if he got the timings a little wrong. We breed and breed and breed and breed. Amusingly, this was summed up perfectly by a character in a film, Agent Smith in "The Matrix", to be exact;

"I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had, during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you aren’t actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with its surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. "

And the solution? Stop breeding. Stick that thing into whoever and wherever you like, but stop squeezing out babies. Reproduction should be regarded like driving and driving, or smoking. Nasty and antisocial. The Government could make a good start by scrapping subsidies for babies. No more Family Allowance, or whatever it's called these days. That was introduced to boost the population after WW2. Big news! WW2 is over. And so should breeding subsidies be. Indeed, we should be adopting the opposite strategy; have more than two and your tax bill goes up.

There is no money

Do our politicians imagine we're completely stupid? Oh, hang on. Stupid question. Of course they do. Do they really imagine we're going to be fooled by the pathetic school-boy arguing about who's going to spend the most money on what? Oh, hang on. Stupid question. Of course they do.

Because otherwise they'd have to admit the truth. There is no money. "Great" Britain is all but bankrupt. The world's largest bond traders have recently rated UK Government bonds ("gilts") as a "sell". That means they think there's a good chance of a default - the Government not being able to pay its debts. (Just as an aside for those not familiar with how the Government borrows money; they sell bonds on the open market. Having sold them, the Government has to pay interest on those bonds, and eventually redeem them. If they are seen as riskier due to the chance of a default, the interest rates rise, and as a consequence, so does the amount of money the Government has to pay out.)

And how does the Government pay its debts? It steals the money from you and I. Can anyone tell me the difference between a Government and a robber baron? There isn't one; they both steal money from you and spend it on things they want and you don't. And don't come whining to me about the NHS and education. The Robber Barons^W^WGovernment always spend money on things that someone doesn't want. Neither bleat about the "social contract"; there's no such thing. And democracy? Don't make me laugh. No matter who you vote for, the Robber Barons^W^WGovernment get in. And they're all the same; utterly convinced they can spend your money better than you can.

And where has that conviction got us? Bankrupt. In hock for the rest of our lives. Is it any wonder that the sight of their oleaginous gobs, spouting lies and platitudes make me sick? And, of course, very angry. All my life I've scrimped and saved. I really have been prudent, unlike those lying scum in Westminster. And where's it got me? Nowhere. I might as well not have bothered.