Several Million Pounds Raised…

… For the cheeeldren, and what did we learn?

Eastenders actors sing better than Hollyoaks ones.

Joy.

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

This can be dangerous… Noticing that somebody googled my blog’s name to find it, I wondered what else would come up with the search term ‘wh00ps.’

I am not the only wh00ps! Not only that- I am not the only blogger called wh00ps!
I found this guy who is an Xbox 360 blogger, named wh00ps. Although I come higher in the google ranking.

Just to clarify, we are not the same person. I may not be the only UK blogger named wh00ps, but I believe I am still the only UK-libertarian-anarcho-capitalist-INTJ-Aquarian-Taoist(ish)-blogger-named-wh00ps from the south east though.

Back when I was a junior commentariat member, I used to comment anonymously but when commenting on this post at DK I chose ‘whoops’ as I felt I had nearly been ‘had’ by Murdoch, and stuck with the name. When I finally decided to start my own blog, I found that the username ‘whoops’ was taken so I replaced the ‘o’s with zeros and the rest is history. I don’t bandy baggage-laden terms like ‘NWO’ around anymore though…

To The Googler…

…who arrived at my blog via the search term “why did Hitler start the Hitler youth?”

Simple. Regimes generally find that capturing the hearts and minds of the youth of a nation is not only easier to achieve than capturing the hearts and minds of the adult population, but also has huge benefits.

The children can be, among other things, induced to keep tabs on the adults (ever see the excellent movie Fatherland?). They will also be adults themselves soon enough, and having been indoctrinated in their youth will find it hard to break free of their indoctrination upon reaching adulthood, especiallly in an environment where other ways of thinking are suppressed. This helps to ensure the future of the regime. They can also be relied upon to be more fanatic in their following whilst children than their adult counterparts.

In regimes based upon a cult of personality like Hitler’s and Mao’s, the effect can be more pronounced (rather like youth being indoctrinated in sunday school) as they will more readily accept the Leader as a god, although by no means is this the only setting that indoctrination of the young can be found.

Under our current system in the west of Gramscian Marxism, we find that leftist views are indoctrinated on our young throughout their school years, perpetrated by teachers and lecturers who had their views formed by the same system. The system long ago became self-perpetuating although recent years have seen ever-closer state control of our education system accelerating the process. Not only are our children now indoctrinated into marxist thought (without reference to the name, natch) but they get used to being assessed, searched, drugged into submission (the “difficult” ones, ie the born leaders), appraised and shoved into boxes they will stay in for the rest of their lives.

So that’s why Hitler started the Hitler Youth. It’s just good sense.

Update: No sooner do I post this, but I catch up on my RSS and this prime example drops into my lap. Read it and weep.

A Musical Interlude

Phew! All this copying-and-pasting, clicking-through-all-my-blogroll to see who has an RSS thingie (and if I’m on it) and the like (whilst cooking and keeping half an eye on I’m A Celebrity) is a little time-consuming and mind-boggling, so here’s what I’m relaxing to:

The King of the harmonica.

Several Sheets Of Blogroll

Damn… I’ve finally gotten round to updating my blogroll, and as I’ve left it so long it’s going to be a bit of a mammoth task. Tsk Tsk!

Ok, so I’m going to do it under a couple of headings…

1) Moved:
Bella Gerens
Conservatives Defending Liberty Formerly StandByLiberty)

2) Gone:
Towards Mutual Benefit (sadly closed)

3) On my RSS for ages but only just blogrolled:
The Views Of A UK Libertarian Teacher
The Salted Slug
Charlotte Gore
Constantly Furious
Dilbert
Angry People In Local Newspapers
Ambush Predator
and The Adam Smith Institute. Phew!

(UPDATE) I’m also going to follow Mummylonglegs’ suggestion and add some RSS feed thingies to the sidebar. Rather than add my favourites I’m going to add the blogs that have me on their RSS-sidebar-thingies, by way of reciprocation (If I miss you out let me know!). I read all the blogs on my blogroll every day, so the ‘daily reads’ thing is a working title only.

Food For Thought…

…for anyone religious or ex-religious (like me):

Jesus was an anarcho-capitalist?

H/T An anonymous commenter at this Samizdata thread.

More Subtle Propaganda In Holby City

Tonight’s episode featured a young woman running her own wedding planning business who, as people do, carried on working from her hospital bed, laptop and mobile phone permanently glued to her hands. Quite right too, as long as she was conscious, people who run their own businesses don’t get sick pay, and her clients needed servicing. A lot of hard work and dedication goes into running your own business, that’s why I don’t do it. Members of my family have, and I worked for them for a while so I’ve seen how difficult it can be.

The subtle subtext screamed (subtly) “difficult patient.” Visiting hours consisted of models in wedding dresses and she was on her phone and working via laptop from her hospital bed despite the funny looks she was getting from both doctors and nurses, which she gaily ignored.

Eventually of course (she had some sort of heart condition I think) she collapsed, whilst on the phone, looking at models.

So what does this suggest? The BBC has long been using it’s dramas to push the establishment agenda, and Holby City is a prime vehicle for this. We know already that small business owners don’t fit, that’s why they are hampered with excessive regulation and tax regimes. It doesn’t fit in with the brave new corporatist world order.

So are they, like smokers, drinkers and fat buggers next to be de-normalized, as they “cost the NHS money?” Despite the lions share of the fruits of their labours going to FUND the state and it’s apparatus?

Possibly.

Hey, like Eric Cartman, “I’m just asking questions here.”

Socialixmas

It’s started. That time of year when I’m not allowed to spend my own money on anything I want, “in case I get it for Christmas.”

Instead, I will be forced by convention to spend all my money on things I imagine other people will want (but probably don’t), and in return they will spend all their money buying things they imagine I want, or, more accurately almost-but-not-quite-the-right-thing-that-I-wanted.

Nice idea for a festival, pity some people seem intent on running the country along the same lines…

RIP Edward Woodward

Comment Of The Week

I’d love to stick around and take part in this debate about global warming, sorry, climate change. Unfortunately, I can’t, as I’m off the the Moon for a few days. Doubtless you’re wondering how I’m going to get there. Easy: I’m going to drive.

I’ve got a ‘96 Toyota Camry. It’s got about 180,000 miles on it by now, but I reckon it’s still good for 0-60 in ten seconds. I’ve also got a computer model. (Actually, it’s an Excel spreadsheet, but it’s running on a computer, so it’s a computer model.) Extrapolating from my data points (both of them!) my computer model says my car should reach 120 after 20 seconds, 180 after 30 seconds and so on. (You know where I’m going with this, don’t you?) Things add up pretty quickly and after 50 minutes I’ll reach orbital velocity (about 18,000 mph) and escape velocity (25,000 mph) after about an hour and a quarter. I’m in my way!

I’ll reach midpoint – 120,000 miles – after about three-and-a-half hours, by which time I’ll be doing about 70,000 mph. Applying the brakes I’ll then decelerate at the same rate I’ve previously accelerated, for a gentle touch down on the Moon about seven hours after I started. Not bad for a ‘96 Camry. I just can’t understand why NASA didn’t think of it.

Anyway, I’ve got a computer model and the science behind it was settled by Newton in the seventeenth century. Now, where are my car keys?

-commenter Robert Sealey at Samizdata