Tuetego - SimplyLogical

SimplyLogical › New article
8 years ago

I have written before about flawed logic and it seems that currently, examples of it are rife. This was at one time the preserve of saloon bars up and down the UK, but thanks to the internet is now endemic the world over. A person makes a flawed assumption, thousands take it as a concrete fact, then re-tweet, post or email this flawed information worldwide within seconds. The media, not known for scrupulous fact checking, then picks up the story and in the space of a few hours the whole world believes it to be true. Wikipedia is another fine example of how false information can easily be circulated. Try editing some scientific fact or another and see who notices. Probably nobody, unless the page is maintained by an enthusiast on a regular basis.

The latest example of false information being spread in the UK is that surrounding the reintroduction of Grammar Schools. The argument against them seems to centre around the fact that they are seen as elitist, that they only exist in better off areas and that disadvantaged children don't attend them. It is the statement that disadvantaged children do not attend them that I take most exception to. The statement implies that the poor are somehow being filtered out of the application process and places given only to the better off. There are undoubtedly thousands of bright children currently in the UK who would benefit from a grammar education. Instead, they are stuck in "comprehensive" schools where, dragged down by the lazy and disruptive in classes so packed there isn't room to swing a crayon, they emerge clueless and foundering in a modern, fast paced society.

Data from the Education Data Lab shows that the disadvantaged (those taking free school meals) do relatively well at passing the Eleven Plus exam, compared to those who do not take free school meals. It is only when you split the groups by ethnicity that you see any real gap in attainment, and this gap appears in the White British group, and not in ethnic minorities. This would indicate that there is some other reason why the disadvantaged of all backgrounds are not being admitted to grammar schools.

I think I may have found the answer. Successive Governments have introduced legislation to try and abolish selective schools completely. The last bit of meddling was by David Blunkett, when as Education Minister, he called for all schools to become comprehensive. Most Labour run authorities had already converted or closed their grammar schools and become a fully comprehensive authority. Children growing up in those areas were unable to take the Eleven Plus examination, therefore could not gain entry to a grammar school even if they were bright enough (which plenty were), and were prepared to travel into a neighbouring area to attend. Therefore the poorest children, living in left wing dominated areas of the country, were unable to attend.

You will have realised therefore, that the reason disadvantaged children are not attending grammar schools is because there isn't one nearby most of the time and they aren't qualified to apply even if there is.

Misinformation and flawed logic at its finest.

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I have written before about flawed logic and it seems that currently, examples of it are rife. This was at one time the preserve of saloon bars up and down the UK, but thanks to the internet is now endemic the world over. A person makes a flawed assumption, thousands take it as a concrete fact, then... Read more

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8 years

ze2000 › I'm not sure if I'm getting this right. You mean the Government is interested in offering poor education to the british children?

8 years

SimplyLogical › @ze2000 Almost. The left wing parties have the opinion that everyone should be given the same opportunities. The problem is that this cannot be a classical, or academic education because not everyone has the ability to take the academic approach. What they do instead is water down the education system (some would say dumbing down) so that everyone is in a lesser system. They would argue that the comprehensive system is as good as the grammar. If that were truly the case, they would not want to abolish grammar schools.

8 years

ze2000 › From the moment all children have to stick to the same education programme the system is flawed. A way of controlling the population? Well, a lot of people talk about conspiracy so...

8 years

7 years

NyishaHv › Isn't it circular reasoning to suggest something 'is' something because of its predicate. For instance a fish isn't the only thing that swims in an ocean. Also by stating something doesn't necessarily make something factual, it could be deemed a synthetic statement.

7 years

NyishaHv › Yeah sadly, this is the case a lot of people derive truth from statements that are not tactual and just matters of opinion. Great article by the way.

7 years

5 years

Strabunica013 › Good evening, my dear! ?‍♀️???? I wish you a happy and blessed Saturday night! ?????

5 years

SimplyLogical › New article
8 years ago

Not content with getting paid just to sign in, sleeping during debates and generally freeloading their way through life, the House of Lords has now fallen prey to its ego.

Yesterday they debated the amendment to the Government's Article 50 bill. Now, for those who don't know, the "Government" meets in the House of Commons and is made up of various elected members of different political parties. The party with the most votes makes a Government and the head of the Government is the Prime Minister. The important bit here is the word elected.

Elected members are paid a salary to attend meetings, sub committees, run constituency clinics or surgeries and to vote for or against legislative changes to the UK constitution. The Lords, on the other hand, are non elected, usually having served the country in various capacities over the years and are granted the title as a privilege. Andrew Lloyd-Webber is a Lord, a title granted to him for his services to the theatre and music. The job of a Lord is to have oversight of the bills being passed by the House of Commons. If they turn up at the House, they get paid a days wage, even if they are only there for five minutes. They are also often caught sleeping during debates, which are generally not well supported, the chamber itself being half empty.

It is because of the above that the "Upper House" as it is sometimes known, is on thin ice. It is seen as an unnecessary step in the red tape of Government and mostly just passes bills brought before them after much rambling debate. Many have therefore called for it to be abolished in favour of an elected body. It is also heavily biased in favour of the political views of the person who nominated them for the honour. The Lords is currently quite left wing in its views because successive left wing Governments made many appointments during the late 90's and early 2000's. Such appointments invariably go to like minded individuals, hence the left wing bias.

Yesterday however, they excelled themselves. After many, many, many hours of debate, they succumbed to the call of their egos and voted in favour of an amendment to the Article 50 bill forcing the Government to allow Parliament to vote on whatever deal is done with the EU regarding Brexit. There was always going to be a vote, but it was a take it or leave it vote, which gave no power for Parliament to force the Government to return to the EU and re-negotiate. This is a ludicrous decision because it is impractical and the Lords know this only too well. Why then did they vote for this? The answer is simple, most members of the House of Lords do not want the UK to leave the EU. It is quite simply a last ditch desperate attempt to stop Brexit.

Consider this. The negotiations to leave the EU will be carried out between the UK and EU negotiators. Assuming they do reach an agreement (which in itself is a tall order), this will then be agreed by the EU and UK, then ratified in each of the EU State's Parliaments. This means a vote by every government in Europe. If then, when it comes to the UK's turn to vote, the deal is rejected, the whole process will have to start again. On what planet would you have to live to think that the UK could go back to the EU and ask for a better deal and get one?

The Lords think that using this device, they can force the Government to keep returning to Brussels asking for modifications to the deal ad-infinitum. They also think that this will keep us in the EU whilst all these new negotiations are made. This simply isn't the case. Article 50 points out the finite nature of the negotiating period. Essentially we have two years to complete the deal or we are considered to be gone anyway. This will, of course, lead to what is known as a "hard Brexit", where no deal is reached and both parties have to resort to World Trade Organisation rules which, in all probability, will include tariffs on goods and services crossing the EU border. That is in nobody's interests, least of all those of the EU.

All is not lost, because the bill will need to go back before the Commons and the Lord's amendment can be removed when it does. Let's just hope that the Loony Left don't get emboldened by the Lord's decision. That, at the moment, seems unlikely because they have to answer to their voters. They alone have the power to keep the MPs honest, or to push them off of the gravy train if they are not. That would in all likelihood result in a drop in salary and them having to work for a living. None of them are quite that Loony.

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Not content with getting paid just to sign in, sleeping during debates and generally freeloading their way through life, the House of Lords has now fallen prey to its ego. Yesterday they debated the amendment to the Government's Article 50 bill. Now, for those who don't know, the "Government" mee... Read more

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8 years

Borderline › In my opinion Lords shouldn't even exist. Nowadays every citizen should be equal!

8 years

SimplyLogical › In a regularly organised society there need to be distinctions, or that society will break down. I think there is a general lack of respect nowadays which undermines authority. Without that, you have anarchy. That said, if you are in a position of responsibility, you need to take those responsibilities seriously or you will automatically lose respect. This is of course what is happening with the Lords. All credibility is being lost, along with respect.

8 years

Borderline › you're right

8 years

SimplyLogical › New article
8 years ago

Science, particularly in the fields of engineering and medical, has undoubtedly transformed the way we live. We can be in space one day, at the bottom of an ocean the next and can expect to live way beyond three score years and ten due to medical advances in disease prevention and cure.

Climate science has always had an air of hurried knee jerk and not properly researched conclusions about it. From fudged global warming figures, to the UK Government's recommendation that drivers switch to diesel vehicles as they are more environmentally friendly have always raised a few eyebrows, including my own.

I sort of forgive these mistakes in areas of "green" science because if global warming does turn out to be man made and not just part of the natural warming and cooling cycle of the Earth, we have limited time to address the contributing factors in our societies.This, coupled with the fact that green politicians are so busy clinging to the bandwagon that they don't have time to consider the logical argument, mean that some daft decisions are bound to be made.

There is also the issue of funding for climate science projects. All bids for money are based on the predication that the research will investigate causes of global warming and therefore bolster the overwhelming evidence that the ice caps are melting because of mankind's activities. A researcher asking for cold hard cash to feed his family for another year is hardly likely to start on the premise that their research may disprove some long held view or another.

The recent news that the burning of wood pellets shipped all the way from the USA to be used in UK power stations may not be very environmentally friendly as burning local coal simply exacts a "no shit Sherlock" reaction from most. As I said, such things are done in knee jerk fashion with little or no research in mankind's panic to save the planet.

But, a far more disturbing piece of news which is bubbling away in the scientific community. After a survey of scientists who were asked to comment on reproducibility in a survey, it appears that less than 30% of published research is able to be reliably replicated. This is a fundamental part of any research whereby scientific peers try to replicate the results published in the original research papers, so such a low reproducibility suggests that something is going on far outside the occasional fluke success.

This has been tested by the University of Virginia's Reproducibility Project which attempted to repeat five cancer studies. More than 66% of published findings were unable to be replicated.

The problem appears to be the funding marketplace. In the rush to get sensational headlines, researchers are cutting corners and publishing unchecked and verified results in the free for all to grab cash.

If our scientists are prepared to let standards drop, our reliance on facts becomes degraded. Added to that, if any challenger is shouted down and labelled deniers (as is the case if anyone questions climate science), the lunatics really will have taken over the asylum. The result of that will be that anyone can make up a fact and it will be accepted as true,

And if anyone knows of a company or individual who wants to buy my research into how to travel at light speed for 25 years on a single mug of camel dung, you know where to find me.

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Science, particularly in the fields of engineering and medical, has undoubtedly transformed the way we live. We can be in space one day, at the bottom of an ocean the next and can expect to live way beyond three score years and ten due to medical advances in disease prevention and cure. Climate ... Read more

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SimplyLogical › New article
8 years ago

The UK has a new £5 note which, according to the Bank of England, is virtually indestructible. The "Paper" that the note is printed on is essentially a plastic (actually called a polymer) that is said to be able to survive the washing machine, is crease resistant and will have a far longer service life than the old "fiver".

So, why has this seemingly non newsworthy move by the bank to save money caused so many UK headlines? Is it because they decrease the number of replacement notes that will be issued by over 60% or to be more environmentally friendly because the polymer notes can be recycled into other plastic products when they are life expired? The answer is no, these facts were hidden away at the bottom of other articles.

Firstly there was the argument that the obverse side should feature a woman and not Winston Churchill as the Bank of England planned. Feminists up and down the country said that this was sexist. They seemed to have forgotten that the other side of the note prominently featured a woman in the form of Queen Elizabeth II in their rush to become enraged. Fortunately, the bank did not bend to their demands and the result is what you see in the banner above this article.

I should point out at this juncture that I am not being sexists here. If Winston had been a woman, I would have been equally happy to see her featuring on the note.

The next headline caused by the new fiver was the completely ridiculous treasure hunt involving the search for low or "special" serial numbers. As I understand things, your fiver may be worth up to £50,000 if it features a serial number starting with AA followed by lots of zeros, or is in the range starting AK47. No doubt gang culture is responsible for the latter and they seem to be prepared to spend large chunks of their hard earned drug dealing profits to own one.

The new note again caused headlines when a micro engraver, called Mr Short from Birmingham, engraved a small portrait of Jane Austen in the transparent area of four of the fivers and placed them in general circulation. Said to be worth £50,000 each, only two have been discovered at the time of writing. Neither will be cashed in, as both will be retained by their recipients. Mr Short's feminist micro protest has at least been registered.

Then came the "biggie". Somehow it became known that tallow is used in the production of these notes and that each one contains a microscopic traces of the substance. For anyone who doesn't know, tallow is just purified fat (usually from a pig) that has been rendered out during processing. It has excellent lubricating qualities and I remember using it at technical college to assist in thread cutting on pipework. It really is good too, I tried once to cut a thread without it, because I couldn't be bothered to walk to the other side of the workshop for more. The result was not so much a thread as an exhibit for the Tate Modern.

I expected more of a noise from the religious groups who consider pigs to be unclean, but they were too slow. The vegans had barely finished choking on their tofu before they were demanding the notes issued thus far were withdrawn and replaced by ones not containing tallow. I admit, I was expecting the bank to spend millions withdrawing them and issuing replacements considered less offensive. It seems however, that after much deliberation, this will not happen. A victory for common sense really. There is such a minute quantity of tallow in these notes, described as " a trace" by the bank, that it really cannot be considered as a pork product. Secondly, vegans are not being asked to eat them, so their bodies will remain temples and they can always buy things with bank card only, thus avoiding the need for cash altogether.

If I were a vegan, or considered a microscopic trace of pork unclean, I think I would be more worried about the bacteria and other nasties that are to be found on notes and coins. I think that the dried on snot and faeces from the last "owner" is probably far more of a worry.

And besides, it adds a touch of realism to the phrase "bringing home the bacon".

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The UK has a new £5 note which, according to the Bank of England, is virtually indestructible. The "Paper" that the note is printed on is essentially a plastic (actually called a polymer) that is said to be able to survive the washing machine, is crease resistant and will have a far longer service ... Read more

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8 years

ze2000 › I have to say that I hate them XD. Having said that I just can't understand why developed countries still use physical currency.

8 years

Borderline › Agree with ze2000

8 years

Bilston › I don't like the new.£5 note.

8 years

Sonia › You have amused me with this one, SimplyLogical. Great thoughts.

8 years

NyishaHv › The new polymer five pound note is apparently tareproof. Cant say i miss the old one. These ones are kind of cool, just seems somewhat pointless. Soon they're going to introduce a polymer £10 note with Jane Austen on it. That'll be interesting to see.

8 years

SimplyLogical › New article
8 years ago

After WWII, the UK decided it was going to be a welfare state and that the well being of its citizens was paramount for future prosperity. There followed a period of intense activity where various safety nets were devised all with the aim of caring for people in times of hardship or ill health. Healthcare became free at the point of use and nobody need worry about having the means to fund a hospital stay or undergo an operation. There were plenty of other initiatives too. Free school milk, welfare clinics to advise people about health matters and free GP surgeries where minor ailments could be diagnosed and referred. It seemed we had reached a utopia.

The theory was simple. Each citizen paid a small amount from their wages each payday and this went into the general pot. The healthy paid toward a time when they needed care and subsidised the sick. It was a kind of insurance policy against illness. In fact, the money people paid in was even called National Insurance. A part of the cash was put aside to pay everyone a pension when they reached retirement and nobody need ever worry again. There were also a range of benefits for disabled people.

What a shame it wasn't that simple. The net value of National Insurance began to be eroded by politicians who diverted the cash elsewhere as it was increasingly seen as a good way to keep the general taxation percentages low. Then the immoral realised that by claiming to have a "dodgy back", they could spend a lifetime being supported by the state with reserved parking outside the door of their favourite out of town shopping centres where they could lounge around all day in their tracksuits. This meant lower heating bills because they were warm in the shops and even air conditioned on the rare hot days in the UK.

It wasn't just back problems that boosted the number of registered disabled, there were any number of other ways that one could ensure a life of all inclusive paid disability.

Even through the Government raids and this erosion of cash, money was swilling about in the National Health Service (NHS) to an extent where it was a good life for all. Health workers couldn't strike for more pay, but that didn't matter. They simply sacked each other every couple of years, then re-employed themselves on twice the salary a couple of weeks later as contractors or consultants performing the same role.

Speaking of consultants, even the medical consultants were at it. All one needed to do was to set up a clinic and see private patients mixed in with the NHS ones. Nobody knew who was who, but the private patients got seen within a few days of referral, the NHS ones waited weeks, but they all sat in the same waiting room on the day of their appointment.

Management undoubtedly turned a blind eye to this because "its only a few quid" and you and I continued to pay to heat and light the consulting rooms, pay the consultant's salary and at the same time see the waiting lists lengthen as more and more people pushed to the front of the queue with the aid of health insurance companies.

We know that hospital managers have a blatant disregard for financial diligence from the recent revelations over "Health Tourism". For those who are unaware, it works like this. A person falls ill in their own country. They may get a diagnosis from a charity doctor, they may not. The net result is that they know treatment is required. The solution is to get a bucket shop flight to the UK as cheaply as possible, then rock up at the nearest A&E hospital and tell them you feel a bit poorly. Anything from an ingrowing toenail to cancer treatments are then at your disposal.

Except they shouldn't be. The rules are that if the UK has a reciprocal agreement with your country, they will pay. If not, the patient needs to pay. In order to make this work, the hospital managers would need to ensure that each patient's nationality was checked on admission to establish entitlement. Payment could then be arranged as appropriate.

This, it was said, was an infringement of the patient's human rights and hospital managers up and down the country refused to do this.The consensus seemed to be that this was just a few million sterling and anyway the NHS was vastly underfunded. More money being poured in was the answer in their opinion.

This apparent disregard for the value of public money is astonishing.

There is a wise saying which goes, "look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves". I find myself wondering if this applies to looking after the millions and the billions will look after themselves? I strongly suspect that it does and, if so, we should spend a "few quid" printing this motto and having framed copies screwed to every NHS manager's office wall.

In fact, perhaps we should even print it on their consultancy fee payment advice notes. In bold and underlined. Maybe using friendly Comic Sans font so they don't feel too outraged.

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After WWII, the UK decided it was going to be a welfare state and that the well being of its citizens was paramount for future prosperity. There followed a period of intense activity where various safety nets were devised all with the aim of caring for people in times of hardship or ill health. Heal... Read more

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8 years

ze2000 › I have so many complaints about the NHS... But not about the workers, the problem is the mismanagement and the waste of the institution.
I always heard that NHS was great but nowadays I would barely give it a 5/10, you have pointed out many of the reasons why.

8 years

Ekram › Nice article

8 years

Lutfur1 › Once it was the national NHS now it's nearly drowning

8 years

SimplyLogical › New article
8 years ago

Modern technology allows us to measure almost anything. You may have a watch which can measure your heartbeat as you go about your normal day, or which measures the number of steps you take and distance traveled. At work, every time you enter some information to a database, there is a time stamp recording, to the millisecond, when you logged that record, or changed it. This means that it is now relatively easy to measure the thousands of actions workers take and to report upon performance.

A supermarket checkout operator may be measured against average number of items scanned in a given time, delivery drivers can be measured in regards to adherence to the delivery route, or mean time between deliveries.

This kind of business intelligence is priceless in terms of planning and decision making. If a supermarket has footfall data showing its busiest time, it can staff accordingly and offset this by reducing staff numbers when it knows the shop will be quiet. Technology makes this possible on a store by store basis, with computers churning out dashboards, reports, graphs and alerts 24/7/365.

If you can measure someone or something's performance, you can reward or penalise for good or poor performance respectively. This is nothing new, workers have been paid on piecework for years. What is relatively new is the measurement of service provision.

Approximately 10 years ago, the UK Government introduced a target for hospital A&E departments whereby patients should be seen and cleared within 4 hours 95% of the time. The A&E staff were justifiably worried about the imposition of this Key Performance Measure (KPI) and started to think of ways of getting around it. The solution was easy.

Because the measure was taken from the patient database where timestamps are used when a patient is booked in to A&E then again when either discharged or admitted, all they had to do was make sure that one of these things happened within 4 hours. The wards had no KPI to meet, so instead of checking with the ward before sending patients to them, the patients were simply sent before the 4 hours was up.

If the ward did not have any available beds, the patient was simply left on the trolley they had been delivered on, usually in the corridor outside. Never mind though; the performance target had been met.

This became almost the only goal for Emergency Departments and hospital management. Now, instead of allocating a part of their budget to improving throughput or facilities to improve efficiency, they continued to spend the money on contract labour to fill gaps at huge cost and wasting money by commissioning white papers and other reports.

It is easy to see how Senior Management would have put the A&E staff under immense pressure to perform, regardless of care needs. In fact it was probably only the caring nature of these front line staff that stopped "Sent to Mortuary" being an acceptable clock stop for the A&E timer.

Because it is now winter and the population has grown, we find that A&E departments are stretched even beyond their ability to fill corridors with trolleys. This has made it impossible to fudge the figures, so we are suddenly in a crisis. A crisis that has been there for years but swept under the carpet, or could have been lessened with a bit of planning and foresight by senior managers.

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Modern technology allows us to measure almost anything. You may have a watch which can measure your heartbeat as you go about your normal day, or which measures the number of steps you take and distance traveled. At work, every time you enter some information to a database, there is a time stamp rec... Read more

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8 years

Bilston › Totally agree.

8 years

Borderline › same

8 years

Ekram › This is true i agree with you nice article

8 years

6 years

Shavkat › @Ekram c",)

6 years

SimplyLogical › New article
8 years ago

A couple of years ago, YouGov (nothing to do with the UK Government, despite the name), carried out a survey in which less than 2% of the British population stated that they were of below average intelligence. Given that an equally small number can be said to be highly intelligent, that means the rest of us are, well, a bit dim.

We cannot be that clever because overestimating one's intelligence is a sign of someone of low intelligence, or a staggering arrogance if you are a politician, which is pretty much the same thing. There are however sufficient numbers of clever sticks in society to have cottoned on to the concept of Social Engineering. Here is how it works.

Pick a subject, speak out loudly on the subject, turn the population against anyone who disagrees. As a bit of a sideline, make some money out of it if possible. In other words, hack into the basic human trait of trust in authority and bingo, the world can be changed.

Take congestion charging as an example. First, make a noise about the pollution levels in major cities. Then point out the ills that socially conscious people are suffering, asthma attacks among cyclists, all down to the polluting exhausts from our cars and vans. Notice that the buses are not included in this vilification, a subtlety missed by many.

Now the motorist is a social pariah who is slowly but surely killing everyone in town. Never mind that the van driver needs his vehicle to carry heavy tools and equipment to do his job, or because it is loaded to the roof with parcels out for delivery fresh from an internet. What can the answer be? Well, a congestion charge.

Make the motorist pay to come into the city and if you have done the groundwork right, there will be a few objectors who can be shut down by accusing them of genocide by Nitrogen Dioxide. I am guessing that few people want to be classed as genocidal maniacs and to be placed in the group populated by Pol Pot, Hitler, Omar Al-Bashir and so on, so they keep quiet.

There follows a slight dip in the number of vehicles using city roads, a massive inrush of cash to the Local Authority and all is forgotten. You can even encourage your citizens to buy diesel cars as they are better for the environment, then reverse that advice saying that the tiny particulates they produce are worse than any of the toxic gasses. Nobody bats an eyelid, so you increase the congestion charge for diesels or charge them 50% more to park. Anyone who objects, well, I am sure you know the way it works now. Meanwhile, the bus goes past belching soot like a battle cruiser laying a smoke screen.

The great thing about social engineering is that it can be used in almost any walk of life.  It is equally valid for speeding, smoking, bad parking, parenting and even policing. 'What?', I hear you say, 'policing, how can that be?' Well, even though your crime data tells you that for a given day of the week at a given time, your most likely suspect will be of a certain age, dressed in a particular way and of a specific skin type, stopping too many people who fit this profile will label you racist or something similar. Nobody wants to be called a racist, and that's reasonable, because most people aren't.

It even works in America with Presidents. If you support President Trump because you like his stance on infrastructure investment, think he will be good for business, like what he said about bringing Americans together and making them proud of their once great nation, you will be labelled a racist "like he is". That is, of course, why the polls said most people would vote against Trump, they didn't want to admit to supporting him. But it turns out that they were very in favour of him when nobody was looking!

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A couple of years ago, YouGov (nothing to do with the UK Government, despite the name), carried out a survey in which less than 2% of the British population stated that they were of below average intelligence. Given that an equally small number can be said to be highly intelligent, that means the re... Read more

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8 years

Borderline › I love your articles man

8 years

SimplyLogical › Thanks Borderline. Just having a rant :)

8 years

bee › I 100% agree with you @SimplyLogical.

8 years

6 years

Shavkat › @SimplyLogical Nice article

6 years

SimplyLogical › New article
8 years ago

The internet has gone crazy for cats it seems. So here is one of mine. His name is Buttons and he is 2 years old. An interesting fact about cats is that they cannot focus on anything closer than about 6" or 150mm. This is why he looks cross eyed, he is trying to focus on the camera, but it is too... Read more

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8 years

Borderline › So cute, I love his eyes!

8 years

ze2000 › I didn't know about the problem they had to focus. Interesting!

8 years

bee › simply beautiful

8 years

7 years

Wandrnrose7 › Yes, I've seen them go cross-eyed in close up pics. He's pretty. Glad he's feeling better.

7 years

SimplyLogical › New article
8 years ago

The arrogance of the establishment is enough to give you indigestion. What a coincidence that yesterday I wrote an article about political arrogance. Had it been a printed article, the ink would barely have dried when we had another stunning example of the contemptuous arrogance of those in Parliament.

The un-elected Speaker of the House, John Bercow decided, quite outside his remit, to deny President Trump a chance to speak in the house during his State Visit. I understand that he is able to ban anyone he deems unfit, but he is also supposed to remain impartial and non partisan. Quite apart from the fact that Bercow overstepped the mark by a considerable margin, the un-electable Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, praised Mr Bercow for speaking out about the President. He went on to say that the Speaker was "standing up for British values".

As far as I can tell, Mr Corbyn has trashed most of the values that Britain held, or at least would like to. He stands as a beacon for the hard left, who would, in a heartbeat, dismantle the industry and innovation that the UK is famous for and would be happy to see the country held to ransom by the Unions and the progressively more loony left.

Nobody who agrees with this statement has yet stopped to consider the embarrassing position that this has placed the Queen in. She will now play host to a man who has been banned from speaking in front of Her Government. They were quick to say that Theresa May had embarrassed Her Majesty by inviting the president in the first place, but she would not have done this without the expressed approval of the Palace.

The fact is that Britain needs an alliance with the USA at the moment. Whatever we feel about Donald Trump's attitude to life, women, abortion and gun laws, he has stated that he will work towards a trade agreement. It may be that any agreement will not particularly benefit the UK, it being more likely to benefit America, but it will certainly make the EU think carefully about punishing the UK for leaving.

This astonishing outburst from John Bercow has doubtlessly reduced the chance of a quick agreement, putting self interest in front of national interest. This must be the very definition of arrogance when your own self belief is so strong that you are prepared to risk the national interest.

Funny though, they seem to be able to put those principles aside to accommodate representatives from Communist China.

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The arrogance of the establishment is enough to give you indigestion. What a coincidence that yesterday I wrote an article about political arrogance. Had it been a printed article, the ink would barely have dried when we had another stunning example of the contemptuous arrogance of those in Parliame... Read more

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8 years

Borderline › agree with all the points

8 years

ze2000 › We don't have a democracy, we have a plutocracy were only the interests of a small portion of the population are represented.

8 years

bee › so true

8 years

SimplyLogical › New article
8 years ago

We have seen some astonishing displays of arrogance recently in politics. First we had the EU referendum in the UK, where almost no politician thought that the vote would be in favour of leaving and consequently failed to put a coherent argument for either remain or leave. This was quickly followed by the election of Donald Trump in the USA. Apart from Trump's own team, who were paid to state the positive to the media, nobody in the establishment thought he stood a hope.

Well both things happened due to the arrogance of the establishment refusing to believe that anyone would vote for Brexit or Trump because to do so was to vote against the Establishment itself. After years of having their ego stroked, politicians had mostly developed their egos to the size of the average skyscraper, which in turn had bred in them an arrogance of almost megalithic proportions. They are totally out of touch with the groundswell of opinion and were not prepared for what happens when ordinary men and women make their feelings known.

This arrogance is still on display again with those who seek to somehow stop the withdrawal of the UK from the EU because "the public made a mistake, they must realise we are better off in the EU". The same is true of the people marching against the election of Donald Trump in the vain hope that they can somehow swap him in the dead of night for a Hillary.

I am not saying that either winning vote was the right outcome for their respective countries, but I am staggered that politicians on both sides of the pond are still trying to overturn the results. I would have thought that elected representatives are charged with doing what is right for their country, not what fits best with their own ideology.

This self belief is so strong, they are even prepared to lie to the voting public to get their preferred result. The scare stories about what would happen to both economies is a prime example. Had we believed the harbingers of doom, the Uk's economy would have been on its knees by August 2016 and the USA would be entering a similar economic decline. The opposite has turned out to be true and, whilst there are no doubt some adjustments in terms of currency rates and share prices to be made, both nations are in a good position to prosper.

It is high time that politicians ceased their ego stroking and thought about the long term good of the country they represent, instead of short term goals followed by a program of after dinner speaking engagements when they leave office.

Note the term leave office. In any other sphere, leaving office after flying high would be failure. But with an ego the size of a skyscraper, the only admission of failure is seen as the failure of the people in not recognizing what was in their best interest.

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We have seen some astonishing displays of arrogance recently in politics. First we had the EU referendum in the UK, where almost no politician thought that the vote would be in favour of leaving and consequently failed to put a coherent argument for either remain or leave. This was quickly followed ... Read more

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8 years

Tiggerfantoo › the world is starting to turn upside down

8 years

Sonia › Very well said, SimplyLogical. I agree with every single word!

8 years

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