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Who is Buying the Art?

Can someone explain this a little more to me?

In 2004/05, MoD civil servants bought a set of paintings by Zil Hoque called Nimbus I, II, III, IV at a cost of £160,000.

They also bought a set of four paintings by Louise Cattrell – Eyrie, Aerial, Tempest and Keep – that cost £72,000, all excluding VAT.

Now, I could understand there being a central art budget, one which is then apportioned out to the various departments. Justified perhaps by saying that something has to hang on the walls and why not support modern art while we\’re about it? That wouldn\’t be a justification in my eyes of course, but I can see how it would pass muster with those making the rules.

Is that actually what is the case?

Might I suggest something a little cheaper? I\’m told that all museums have vastly more art than they can actually show: they\’ve got basements full of stuff that never sees the light of day. Why not simply sprinkle some of that on the walls for the delectation of our servants: we\’ll keep the cash for ourselves, thanks very much.

Political Advice

All three of my American readers need to know who I endorse to be the next President of the United States.

I can\’t honestly says that I\’m greatly enamoured of any of the Democratic candidates. Dennis Kuchinich (if he\’s still running) has committed the unpardonable sin of marrying a good looking redheaded Englishwoman, thus leaving one fewer for me to pursue. Obama is, as has been pointed out, while of a dusky hue not actually "black" nor "African-American", despite being both black and authentically descended from an African and an American and Satan will be wearing winter woolies before I\’ll say anything nice about Hillary. There\’s a hairstyle running as well, or so I\’m told.

On the other side we\’ve got someone so dumb as to both insist that evolution is not true and that a single sales tax is the way to fund government. Plus a gold bug, someone who has passed laws to curtail political free speech and a not very good actor (although his wife would provide the finest pair of tits to grace the White House since the Carters themselves which is a plus). Also someone who claims that his beliefs are grounded in Moronism which while a refreshing burst of honesty for a politician isn\’t exactly comforting.

No doubt there are other assorted intellectual and moral pygmies looking forward to renting out the Lincoln bedroom as well but ennui has thankfully left me ignorant of who they are.

However, there is one shining beacon, a ray of sunlight illuminating the political scene. By day a mild mannered accountant from Ohio, by night the salvation of the Republic, one who has selflessly thrown his hat into the ring.

Yes, Dennis the Peasant has agreed to lead the western world. This blog endorses him wholeheartedly.

A Written Constitution

Georgie Porgie:

If you doubt Britain needs a written constitution, listen to the strangely unbalanced discussion broadcast by the BBC last Friday. The Today programme asked Lord Guthrie, formerly chief of the defence staff, and Sir Kevin Tebbit, until recently the senior civil servant at the Ministry of Defence, if parliament should decide whether or not the country goes to war. The discussion was a terrifying exposure of the privileges of unaccountable power. It explained as well as anything I have heard how Britain became party to a crime that may have killed a million people.

Guthrie argued that parliamentary approval would mean intelligence had to be shared with MPs; that the other side could not be taken by surprise ("do you want to warn the enemy you are going to do it?"), and that commanders should have "a choice about when to attack and when not to attack". Tebbit maintained that "no prime minister would be able to deploy forces without being able to command a parliamentary majority. In that sense, the executive is already accountable to parliament". Once the prime minister has his majority, in other words, MPs become redundant.

That written constitution thing. Sure stopped the US, didn\’t it?

Larry Summers Was Right!

You\’ll recall of course that Larry Summers ended up losing his job for stating as an hypothesis that men have greater variance around the mean than women do.

Unfortunately for the Harvard faculty, he was correct:

Helena Cronin, philosopher at the London School of Economics and director of Darwin@LSE, a research group devoted to what Darwinism can tell us about human nature.

"I used to think that patterns of sex differences resulted mainly from average differences between men and women in innate talents, tastes and temperaments … Add to this some bias and barriers – a sexist attitude here, a lack of childcare there – and the sex differences are explained. Or so I thought … But they alone don\’t fully explain the differences … Females are much of a muchness, clustering round the mean. But, among males, the variance – the difference between the most and the least, the best and the worst – can be vast.

"So males are almost bound to be over-represented both at the bottom and at the top. I think of this as \’more dumbbells but more Nobels\’… Unfortunately, however, this is not the prevailing perspective in current debates, particularly where policy is concerned."

President Kibaki

What is shocking about the rigged poll is not the fact of electoral manipulation, but its blatancy. President Kibaki\’s partisans barely troubled to cover their tracks.

So another African politician stole an election.

And?

Deepak Lal\’s view of governments, that they are simply robber barons leeching off the populace, is seen as somewhat extreme. However, for a large part of the world, it is true. The only interesting question is how much of it?

Can the Leopard Change His Shorts?

The Olympic Games\’ ability to attract controversy is enjoying a new twist after China\’s equivalent of Des Lynam was humiliated at a television ceremony by his wife storming onstage and accusing him of conducting an affair.

…

Opinion was divided. While many enjoyed the humiliation doled out to the CCTV anchor – a breed held in much contempt by internet users – others pointed out that Mrs Hu should not have been surprised at her treatment.

After all, Zhang was already married to his first wife when he met her.

Perhaps not, eh?

I\’ve Come Over All DK

Apologies, but this is rather a red curtain of blood moment:

In a New Year message to NHS staff, the Prime Minister indicates people may have to fulfil new "responsibilities" in order to establish their entitlement to care.

What is the snot gobbling fist clunker on about now? Responsibilities? Establishing an entitlement to care?

Is being forced at gunpoint to pay for it every working day of ones\’ life no longer enough?

Potassium Nitrate?

Seriously?

Yesterday the Israeli announced that the IDF and Shin Bet had found “6.5 tons of potassium nitrate hidden in sacks that were disguised as aid from the European Union”.

Potassium nitrate? Saltpetre? People are making explosives out of black gunpowder?

Sheesh, you\’d think they would have caught up with the IRA by now and be using ammonium nitrate and derv by now, wouldn\’t you?

Really Not a Surprise

Only a fifth of doctors believe that a national electronic system for storing patients’ records will be secure, a poll for The Times has shown.

More than three quarters are either “not confident” that data will be safe or “very worried” that data will leak once the £20 billion National Programme for IT (NPfIT) is running. Asked how well they thought that local NHS organisations would be able to maintain the privacy of data, only 4 per cent said very well. The majority, 57 per cent, said quite or very poorly.

The poll was carried out online over Christmas. In general, the GPs, who have the greater experience of IT systems, are more sceptical than the consultants.

As some hundreds of thousands of people will have access to such records the doubts over security seem logical enough, don\’t you think?

Well, Quite

Odd but encouraging to find a real liberal in The Guardian:

Here is the book you ought to read to fortify you for the further assault on our freedoms and civil liberties that lies ahead: Towards the Light by the philosopher AC Grayling. It is subtitled The Story of the Struggles for Liberty & Rights that Made the Modern West. Grayling vividly describes how the rights and freedoms liberal democracies take for granted were won at great cost in heroic suffering and death, over several centuries. Yet we\’re in danger of losing them, quickly and unnecessarily, in the name of public safety and administrative efficiency. He reminds us of Benjamin Franklin\’s saying: "He who would put security before liberty deserves neither," and ends with a passionate plea to "never give in to the thieves of our liberties … It is what we owe the dead who bought them for us with their lives, it is what we owe ourselves in our aspiration for good lives, and it is what we owe those whose lives are to come: the inestimable gift of liberty, and the security of inalienable rights."

What a Disgusting Little Fascist

And what about children? If the government is sincere about protecting those most vulnerable from second hand smoke, then why isn\’t a ban on smoking in all households containing children, at least being considered?

Ultimately, the ban enacted on July 1 should not be the end of the legislative process but the beginning. The months and years to come should witness a wealth of legislation enacted by the government leading towards one ultimate goal: the abolition of smoking, whether public or private, throughout the land, forever.

Could we please make sure that this Chris Hallam is jeered and mocked wherever he goes? What a disgusting little shit he is.

It\’s not just the impossibility of a ban, the creation of black markets, the loss of billions a year in revenue, the increased costs to the health and pension systems. It\’s the perfect illiberality of the proposal. That people should not be allowed to do as they wish simply because he doesn\’t want them to.

Not all that surprising

Really:

Home buyers in the South are paying more than three times as much stamp duty as those in the North of the country, new figures show.

An ad valorem tax is higher where prices are higher? Slap me with a wet kipper. You\’ll be saying that income tax revenues are higher in the South, where wages are higher, next.

It added that the amount of stamp duty now paid by residents in the South – which is made up of London, the South East, South West and the East – was equivalent to around 25 per cent of average annual earnings.

In the North it was only around 10 per cent of average pay.

And that shows the stupidity of the system in itself. We actually want to have labour force mobility. People moving to where the jobs are. And we\’re going to have a tax equal to 25% of annual wages on people making such a movement? Idiocy.