Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
The Failygraph tried it some time back, offering readers their own blogs, but now The Guardian is trying a different approach - but with the same objective, to dominate the blogosphere.
It is interesting to see quite how much the independent blogosphere worries the MSM, with even The Guardian acknowledging that there are "many bloggers out there who are often just as good as Guardian journalists – if not better – at spotting stories and responding quickly and imaginatively to them".
Unable to up its game and thus to compete, it is adopting the usual corporate trick of trying to corral the bloggers into a pen, where they can be housetrained and controlled.
But, of course, such is the poverty of corporate thinking, that it ends up recruiting the dross, unable – as always – to deal with the real independents. They will continue to provide the real thinking, and the best content, while the MSM continues its steady decline to obscurity.
Climate Industry fails.
Just as with the banking collapse we are being forced to face penury, cold and hunger not through "climate change", carbon emissions or other natural phenomenon but through the business created in carbon trading and fossil fuel price inflation. Every ignorant, pig headed plonker from Ghastly Gore to Hoon of Huhnes, via Bliar, Brown, Cameron et al, should be forced to read and then eat and swallow the first linked article.
That article gives us scarce relief from the endless diatribe of fear politics, so typically shown in the second link. Savour the contrast while you can. Dissent will be squashed, mark my words.
MF Five A Day
Monday, June 6, 2011
A start to Blogging
It started with a frank discussion with my eldest daughter about the money she owed to credit card companies and banks. I endeavoured to attempt to help her as best as I could. After a bit of research I found an internet forum that purported to have a formula to regain the high charges that were being levied on her. However that forum was infested with Moderators that knew best, even when they were proved wrong so I left that forum when I was invited to join a new forum made up of those dissatisfied with the forum I'd left.
I thoroughly enjoyed being a member there, and with the exchange of experience I managed to claw back a large amount of money for my daughter (Bye the way Santander, you’re quite useless. You didn’t actually need to reimburse my daughter twice!). I also helped claw money back for others caught in the same predicament.
After eighteen months there, with many online friends, they opened an internal blogspot. This is where I found I could let my thoughts expand and run riot. Eventually I realised that I was only writing to a narrow audience that didn't understand my passion for writing about other than bank penalty charges. Not their fault at all. They were wonderful people doing a sterling job. But I had to move on.
Somehow I came across Blogger, and with great trepidation wrote my first post. This of course, was a heap of manure, but it is was my first foray into the Blogosphere. And have I learnt so much, in so little time. I've had to learn to add hyperlinks, imbed video and pictures, make up a blogroll, try and answer comments in polite and erudite way, and so much more.
Luckily I found out most of these from other bloggers who have been keen to help new bloggers. I'd like to pay a little tribute to those bloggers that have opened my eyes to the sheer delusion that politicians are here to serve us, the climate change scam, that there are fake charities, useless bloodsucking quangos, the EU and its money stealing devices, and numerous other issues of which the general public seem unaware.
I can never match the top bloggers, but I'll do my best to improve and stay the course. And you and I know it. The Blogosphere is grinding the MSM into the dust in a slow but inexorable way.
Micturition in the same pot
I've had my doubts about Tim Montgomerie and his "Uncle Tom" website Conservative Home. But those doubts are now fully supported as we see his blog join The Guardian as a "content partner" – alongside "feminists" and the neo Marxist Left Foot Forwards.
And, to consummate the nuptials, we have a vomit-inducing piece from the self-same Tim Montgomerie, headed "Cameron must start worrying about Europe" - sitting on the Guardian website. It tells us that "David Cameron already has the NHS and crime on his list of challenges. But his Eurosceptic credentials are widely doubted".
This is straight out of the muppet school of politics, the fare of the fool Oborne, and an insult to the intelligence of any reader who can muster more brain cells than Montgomerie has fingers. All together now: Euroslime Dave has no Eurosceptic credentials. He is a rabid Europhile.
However, the main news of this particular post is the marriage of The Guardian and Conservative Home. Had anyone had ventured that this might happen, even a year ago, they would have been dismissed as a blathering madman. But now, impossible things come to pass ... proving once again that the political classes are all partaking in joint micturition exercises, mostly on the rest of us.
As another one sells out, though - corrupting the word "independent" - we need our own voices, more than ever. At least not being on the ConHome blogroll is now a badge of honour.
The MF Five A Day
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Some suggestions for the direction of Independent Political Bloggers
In the comments to The Filthy Engineer's post, “Lies, lies, and those manifestos” Richard asked for views regarding his original vision for Independent Political Bloggers which was to establish:
“a site about independent political bloggers and blogging, to promote the genre - a sort of noticeboard combined with "chat room"”.
If I remember correctly (I haven't found the original, so I may have dreamt it), Richard wanted to promote the disparate independent bloggers as a strong and credible, journalistic alternative to the churnalistic MSM.
If that's what he said, I think it's a great objective. If he didn't say it and I just made it up, I still think it's a great objective.
I believe there's a hunger for Richard's proposal. Unfortunately though, the actual business of blogging is pretty dull and once we've provided the bios that Richard suggested, there's probably not a great deal more to say. With nothing to say, our readers will desert and blogs without readers have absolutely no hope of influencing opinion. And so on balance, while I think the bios are a good idea and should be retained, my guess is that IPB can only survive on a diet of regular political comment.
The other difficulties that IPB faces are (i) that we are unlikely to give up our individual blogs and will want to reserve our best material for them and (ii) that there is already an excellent 'super-blog' in the shape of Orphans of Liberty.
With all that in mind, these are my own suggestions for a possible way forward. Hopefully, they will stimulate a discussion and more suggestions from other bloggers:
we need to make up our minds over the objective(s) of IPB. Given that the concept of opposition has all but disappeared from Parliament, I favour developing a coherent bloggers' opposition as a genuine focus of dissent for all of those who feel disenfranchised by the current political model;
to this end, our blogroll should feature all bloggers and MSM journalists whose writing is sympathetic to our objectives;
to get the ball rolling, encourage all sympathetic bloggers to follow OldRightie's example and produce a ranked 'manifesto' listing the top 10 policies they would most like to see changed/scrapped/introduced. Based on the results, we could produce an overall top 10 on which IPB blogs would concentrate;
For material, we all guarantee one original blog per week or use IPB as a 'best-of' site. In addition, we could – on a pre-moderated basis - include ad-hoc contributions from non-bloggers;
the narrower focus and objective should prevent us from replicating the effort at the Orphans of Liberty site;
as Richard has already suggested, we should avoid ranking the individual blogs but we do need to stimulate and record site approvals;
we all actively 'market' the site on our own blogs.
Time Traveller's website is at Adventures in Time Travel
Do not feed the clogs
One of the key differences between websites of diverse character and blogs is, perhaps, the latter comprises a community – especially the political blogs – known loosely as the "blogosphere".
In fact, there is not one community, but several, rendering the blogosphere a highly fragmented entity, with little cross-over. The left and the right, for instance, occupy their own spaces, and there are specialist communities, such as the climate change fraternity, again split between the "deniers" and the "believers".
What makes the community are two things. The first is a commonality of interest. But the second is linkage, through dynamic links in the text of posts, and in the blogrolls – the list of preferred blogs, to which the individual blogger draws attention. These links, more than anything else, pull the blogosphere together.
Within the political blogging "set", though, there is another division, between the givers and the takers – the feeders and the parasites. Broadly, this amounts to the links offered, and their nature. Some blogs are generous with their links, picking up other sites across a wide spectrum, with a comprehensive blogroll.
Here, there is an informal convention on reciprocation. If a blog links to another on its blogroll, the recipient returns the favour and does likewise. Textual links are a different matter, but one tries to offer links to sites that have something to say, and are toiling in the same vineyard.
Those are the givers, as opposed to the takers, the parasites – usually those with a high profile which receive multiple references from other blogs, but do reciprocate and favour only a very limited number of blogs on their blogrolls and with textual links.
The classic offender here is the Guido Fawkes blog, which has a very small blogroll and rarely links to other sites. It builds its circulation on the back of other blogs, but puts very little back – sharing a parasitic existence with the likes of Conservative Home and some others, who form their own exclusive, self-referential claque.
But a particularly malignant sub-set comprises the "clogs". As is the blog, a composite word - built from "weB LOG" – so is the "clog", built from "Corporate bLOG". Mainly media sites, these are the true parasites, who rarely link to others outside their own corporate domains, yet benefit hugely from inwards links.
This refusal to link is quite often a matter of deliberate policy. Journalists who generously include links to independent bloggers, find the links removed by editors, following their business policy. Between them, the corporates – who see the independents as a threat – are making a bid ownership of the blogosphere. Rather like their supermarket cousins, they are attempting to freeze out the independents.
Inexplicably, though, the independents often help the corporates out, linking freely to their parasitic clogs – who will never reciprocate – and ignoring their fellow independents. Thus does some fine writing in the independent blogosphere struggle for an audience, while the clogs prosper.
In what is a battle for survival, therefore, independents can help each other out, by favouring other independents in their links, and being extremely sparing in their links to the clogs, the claque and other parasites. Basically, the convention of reciprocation should be a guide, leaving the parasites to feed their own.
In short, do not feed the clogs.
Kids - complicated or simple consequence?
This from 2006, not today but as ever the reality is ignored. Family life and dare I say marriage, has been traduced to a less than common estate. Acres of print, political pamphlets and the myriad of manifesto lies, have all combined to bring us to an unhealthy state. Meddling by Government, politicos massaging the big corporate chains and advertising executives are the problem. Not you or I.
Meanwhile the grip in high places of inadequate males and their predilections, there are too many like this to ignore, is slowly taking us to paedo marches for equal rights every bit as a much a bandwagon as "Gay" rights.
My generation kicked off the "sexual revolution" but those of us able to spot the selfishness and exploitative nature of this hedonistic short termism in morality have, I venture to suggest, done better than those who pursued eternal youth and who now are very ridiculous, burnt out plonkers. These same individuals however went into power. I rest my case.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Your EU Government.
We learnt a little something of their benefits yesterday.
The MF Five A Day
- ..... It's Been A While
- The Cost Of Democracy
- It's Time Dave Sorted This Out
- Reasons To Persecute The Motorist
- Dry Yer Eyes Jody And Keep Your Fingers Crossed
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Lies, lies, and those manifestos
Why do we bother to vote? Because we are promised that a political party can better our lot in life.
In the past we would have elections, and before they were carried out, the political parties would lay out their aspirations in their Manifesto. In the distant past, that manifesto was treated as a document that, we the people, could depend on to a large extent to judge the parties on their commitment to policies. It was easy in those days. You chose the manifesto that you agreed to, and voted accordingly. Bye and large it worked. Politicians of that bygone age, in the whole, usually tried to deliver those policies. That was the day of honest politics.
Now, sadly we have no men of honour inhabiting the Mother of all parliaments. We have career politicians who have never served in any competitive private sector environment and are just after power for power's sake.
What is the point of these manifestos? If they can be torn up immediately after an election, why bother drawing them up in the first place? I would like to see them as a legal document and any deviation challenged in the courts. Of course there would be some problems left behind by a previous governments policies that would have to stay in place for a short while.
Example.
If you went into a shop and saw a TV and the blurb stated that it could do all manner of wonderful things, you would buy it, in the belief that you had bought a product that would suit your need. However if your TV failed to do those most wondrous of things that you’d been promised, you would be entitled to a refund or replacement under Sale of Goods and services act. And most certainly wouldn’t wait five years before returning it.
Example.
If you saw an advert that intimated that ingesting cyanide would give you eternal life, what would your relatives do after burying you? (In my case. A paupers grave. But that’s another story). They would very quickly (I hope) contact the Advertising Standards Authority to have that advert removed.
So why do we have to put up with governments who promise the earth, but don't deliver?
So my point is, can we have an act that would allow us to return the government from whence they came, namely opposition?
"The repeal of Governments and useless hangers on Act" maybe.
Or can we just hang all 650 of them? (I have more than enough piano wire in the garage.).
The MF Five A Day
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Featured Blog: Adventures in Time Travel
In the circles in which I move, I find that few people are prepared to discuss overtly political issues – on the rare occasions that friends and colleagues take a position, it is usually a view of the world predetermined by an ingrained political allegiance, the only modifications permitted being those scripted by the BBC and/or their daily newspaper of choice.
The emergence of the political blog proved to be a revelation, especially with the commenting facility providing an opportunity to weigh and exchange views. Having our own ingrained views persuasively challenged is enlightening. Having others put into words what we have been feeling is liberating: self-doubt may not entirely disappear but at least we know that we are not alone when holding an opinion that runs counter to the prevailing MSM orthodoxies.
After a long period of deliberation, I began publishing my own blog, Adventures in Time Travel, in March this year. It deals with general political matters affecting the UK in what I hope is a way that contributes to unsettling some of the constructs by which others seek to control us. My blog won't change the world but in conjunction with others, I'd like to think it could eventually play its part.
I write from no particular political perspective - although I'm regularly mistaken for a conservative. I usually start from a position that our entire political system favours interests other than those of the electorate: we desperately need an opposition. I loath political correctness because it is divisive and antithetical to freedom of speech. I'm pro-Europe but anti-EU. I am pro-sanctuary but anti-unfettered immigration. I become especially exercised by injustice, the suppression of our freedoms and the climate scam.
I try to publish at least once a day although weekends and commitments elsewhere may occasionally interfere. And every now and again - usually when Johann Hari writes about climate change - I may suffer a blinding rage that will temporarily inhibit my ability to form a coherent sentence. Comments and conversations are always welcome – so please do drop in when you can.
The second fifty
- Adventures in time travel
- All Seeing Eye
- Ampers Rants
- Banned
- Barking Spider
- Barnacle Bill
- BBC Institutional Bias
- Bishop Hill
- Bloggerheads
- Calling England
- Captain Ranty
- Constantly furious
- Derek Bennett
- Dick Puddlecote
- Disenfranchised of Buckingham
- Dioclese
- England's freedome
- European disunion
- Frank Davis
- Gallimaufry and Chips
- Going Faster, Getting Nowhere
- Groompy Tom
- Harry's Place
- Head Rambles
- Infinite Unknown
- It's All Kicking Off
- Jim Greenhalf
- Junius on UKIP
- Katabasis
- Longrider
- Luikkerland
- Max Farquar
- Mick Hartley
- Muffled Vociferation
- Nanny Knows Best
- Nominedeus
- Orphans Of Liberty
- Panscourer!
- Patently Rubbish
- Quizzical gaze
- tee2i
- The Cynical Tendency
- The Angry Exile
- The Fairfacts Media Show
- The Lakelander's View
- The Moose
- The Raft Journal
- The Ranting Penguin
- UK Commentators
- Wasps Nest
A Wednesday fourteen
- Adventures in time travel
- Barnacle Bill
- Constantly furious
- Derek Bennett England's freedome
- European disunion
- Frank Davis
- Harry's Place
- Luikkerland
- Panscourer!
- Patently Rubbish
- Tee2i
- Quizzical gaze
- UK Commentators
More authors are welcome. Just drop your e-mail in the comments.
A Wish List
- Globalisation stopped.
- Food distribution as aid, without cash
- Western democracies start from scratch.
- A total withdrawal of Western military from everywhere but their own countries.
- The dismantlement of the EU.
- Same for The UN.
- Same for NATO.
- Corruption made a capital offence
- Murder and paedophilia the same.
- No politician to hold high office for more than 5 years and NO fat job afterwards, only before.