Whicker’s World was a hugely popular documentary TV show in Britain (so popular that the onscreen ubiquity of host Alan Whicker would later be parodied by the Python gang) that ran for almost 30 years starting in the late fifties. Tonight we look at an extract from a 1967 episode that focused on San Francisco’s so-called Love Generation — or, if you prefer, proto-Democrats.
h/t
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Is There Nothing That Obama Can’t Do?
Uh oh.
The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire
Democrats: They’ll do for America what they’ve done for Detroit.
The latest scandal, which leaves even hardened observers of the abysmal Democratic machine that has run the city into the ground bemused, involves a real estate firm which gave the felonious mayor massages, golf outings, trips in chartered jets and other perks as this enemy of the people went about his hypocritical business of pretending to care about the poor while robbing them blind. The firm, apparently run by a sleazy low class crook named by the reprehensible Kilpatrick to be the Treasurer of what was left of Detroit’s finances, used Detroit pension funds to buy a couple of California strip malls. Title to the properties was never transferred to the pension funds, and they seem to be out $3.1 million.
French Voters Choose the Road to Greece
The voters of France have elected a devout socialist by the name of Francois Hollande to lead them … perhaps on a direct path to where Greece is today.
When economic realities meet socialist delusions, we’ve all seen which one wins:
Paris has a strange atmosphere right now. It is hard to get a table at the bistros of Saint-Germain, yet people have a sense of foreboding.
They know austerity has hardly begun. The press is full of stories that the biggest property bubble ever known in France has begun to deflate. Yet the party goes on. Perhaps this is what it felt like in May 1931, avant le déluge.
Germany took its medicine with the Hartz IV labour reforms eight years ago – under a Social Democrat, nota bene – when the world was humming and EMU competitors were merrily inflating their way into varying degrees of fixed exchange rate Hell.
France will have to take its medicine in less propitious times, somehow clawing back 20pc in unit labour competitiveness against an austere Germany.
It is not easy to see how France can pull this off. Little has been done so far beyond repeal of the infamous 35-hour week. Labour rigidities – employment protection, high tax wedge and minimum wage (SMIC), etc – are among the most entrenched in the OECD club. The unreformed French state takes 55pc of GDP.
Y2Kyoto: State Of Aneroxia Envirosa
May every one of these bastards freeze in the dark.
About a dozen protesters, including one of Canada’s leading energy-environment economists, were arrested Saturday after setting up a blockade on train tracks in White Rock, B.C., aimed at stopping U.S. coal trains from reaching local ports.
h/t Edward
Things You’ll Never See On The CBC
Marc writes – You speak of this bridge plot by Occupy Cleveland members. Are you sure this actually happened? I did a thorough search on the CBC and there seems to be no evidence that is took place.
It’s Probably Nothing
h/t EBD
Children Of The Pod
Never has a little good news been so utterly depressing.
Risk has famously been banned from Canadian school playgrounds, so the Winnipeg playground marked a small victory for the growing movement of educators, parents, designers and physicians who argue that it makes for boring, barren spaces that children just don’t want to play on.
This doesn’t mean all those merry-go-rounds, jungle gyms and teeter totters are being reinstalled. But a new breed of nature-oriented playground featuring rough materials, including some that offer the opportunity for a fall from some height, are being built with more than just safety in mind. […]
Their call is boosted by a growing body of research that is discovering the benefits of a little bit of risk in child development...
They needed research for this?
I’ve just arrived at a numbing realization. These researchers, academics, and career bureaucrats in control of education cannot recall their own childhoods.
The world is not being run by “crazy people”, after all.
The world is being run by aliens.
h/t Anthony
Related: Amish farm kids remarkably immune to allergies: study
Reader Tips
In tonight’s amusement en route to the Tips, from the 1935 MGM film A Night At the Opera, Chico and Harpo Marx – the uncles you wish you had – provide a little light musical entertainment.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
A Taiwanese View of the Quebec Riots
If you want to see a complete mischaracterization of what’s going on in Quebec, watch this ridiculous animation:
One obvious question is, “What on earth do the protests have to do with TD Bank?” One wonders if the aforementioned financial institution will soon be contacting its lawyers re a libel suit against NMA?
Take Me, Dear Leader
And now, the Life Of Brian.
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
The researchers gave study subjects pork containing androstenone and separated them into two groups — those who found the smell offensive and those who didn’t. Genetic analysis of the subjects revealed that those who didn’t like the smell had two copies of a specific form of a gene known as OR7D4. The others had only one copy of the gene.
But, it turns out, most people don’t even notice the smell of androstenone.“In North America and Europe, pigs are castrated, so the concentration of androstenone is quite low,” said Hiroaki Matsunami, a co-author and associate professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at Duke University Medical Center. “The only time you find a high concentration of androsteone is when you eat wild boar meat.”
That could soon change, however. The researchers noted that the European Union is considering a ban on castration because of concerns over animal welfare, and this debate has rekindled interest in how humans perceive the smell of pork and why two people may smell it differently.
The European financial collapse cannot come quickly enough.
We Are The World
Thanks to a massive $105-million campaign by the U.S. government, with money from Canada and dozens of other nations, the effort to produce clean cooking stoves has suddenly become the most fashionable cause in foreign aid.
[…]
But now there are hard questions about whether the campaign is actually benefiting poor people. […] The randomized trial in India found little benefit from the new stoves, no reduction in air pollution, and no improvement in the health of their users.
Emphasis on “we”.
Despite the new study, the U.S. campaigners are determined to push ahead.
(Related pointless feely goodness. )
h/t Anthony
The Tolerant Left
Tracking the Southern Poverty Law Center;
“Isn’t that exactly what happened in Cleveland?” I asked. “These five men, all linked with Occupy Wall Street, attempted to blow up a bridge as an overture to the wholesale destruction of Cleveland, Ohio, and in the name of anarchism. They also looked to blow up the Republican convention.”
“They were anarchists,” he repeated.
“Yes?”
He paused. “We’re not really set up to cover the extreme Left.”
h/t Dan
The Football Spiker In Chief
Michael Mukasey: Obama and the bin Laden Bragging Rights
How’s That Hopey-Changey Thing Working Out For Ya?
Rick Santelli: “4/5ths of the reduction in unemployment is due to the drop in the labour force participation rate. And that is a biggie.”
Reader Tips
In 1985 LA-based songwriter/composer Randy Newman discovered that he was seemingly the only singer/celebrity on earth who hadn’t been invited to the We Are The World recording session. Miffed by the snub, (or so his wry anecdote goes), he endeavoured to write a truly universal song, one that people of every creed and colour in every nation on earth could relate to. Darned if he didn’t do it, too: from a live performance in Germany, here’s I Want You To Hurt Like I Do.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
The Truth About Beauty
Why It’ll Stay Government Motors For A While Yet
In the NY Times, no less (business section of course):
General Motors posted its ninth consecutive profitable quarter on Thursday. But almost three years after its taxpayer bailout and bankruptcy, the nation’s biggest automaker still can’t shed the stigma of being “Government Motors.”
Because the Treasury Department still owns a 26 percent stake in the company, G.M. remains saddled with pay restrictions that limit its ability to recruit new talent, a ban on corporate jets, and lingering image problems in the eyes of some consumers.
Company executives usually deflect questions about the effect of government ownership on their business, or their frustration with it. But in a rare interview on the topic, G.M.’s chief executive, Daniel F. Akerson, said he longs for the day that G.M. can finally say goodbye to its biggest shareholder…
Sigh.
Embrace Hollywood!
“Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story.” – Michael Moore