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Spring day today. One moment sunshine and the next raining.
Scored a Tanya Tucker cassette (remember them?) this morning. I like her singing. She does a marvellous rendtion of the great Statler Brothers song "Bed Of Roses". PLus a neato old vhs of 60's groups. The Kinks, the Hollies, Hermans Hermits and a whole lot of other 'soft' stuff, but hey it takes all types.
Stayed up late last night to watch Dave Letterman. Bubba was on.
He said that the wall street protesters had better get some sort of programme together or else they are just wasting their time.
And where were they when everything was going gangbusters?
Funny old world.
Still inching my way through 'Europe Divided' by J.H. Elliott.
all those European KIngs fighting for a patrimony. IN the days before the productive power of industrial capitalism was realised the important thing was the yield ratio of corn that counted. Anything over 4:1 meant a surplus and taxes so more land was the only way to increase taxation and consequently military and dynastic power.
And last week I picked up a copy of Origins of World War Two by A.J.P. Taylor. He makes several observations about war and great powers. It seems the only way to be a great power is to never fight a big war. If you do that then you lose? Hmmmmmmmm.
So much for the jump ups who want to plunge the world into darkness.
Locally its the shipwreck on the Astrolabe Reef that is causing concern. With such a large coastline New Zealand has had its fair share of marine tragedy's. this one is leaking oil and containers are dropping off the decks but it should be brought under control soon. the problem is that the government or more importantly have been unsure of what to do. It cant be managed away with smooth talk and a few laughs on the teevee. The response from the government has been first to ignore it and then swoop and ocme on like a gang of maritime experts which they are not. Pathetic really. This particular government was elected solely on the basis of it being their "TURN". Yeah right,but the subtext was the sale of the states assets into personal and private ownership. How neat is that? "We areopposed to the governmets owning anything so sell them to us or our proxies and we will take them off your hands. the upshot is that they have had a fistfull of badluck and one can only shudder what karma and hubris have in store for them if they carry on with their pelf.
Scored a Tanya Tucker cassette (remember them?) this morning. I like her singing. She does a marvellous rendtion of the great Statler Brothers song "Bed Of Roses". PLus a neato old vhs of 60's groups. The Kinks, the Hollies, Hermans Hermits and a whole lot of other 'soft' stuff, but hey it takes all types.
He said that the wall street protesters had better get some sort of programme together or else they are just wasting their time.
And where were they when everything was going gangbusters?
Funny old world.
Still inching my way through 'Europe Divided' by J.H. Elliott.
all those European KIngs fighting for a patrimony. IN the days before the productive power of industrial capitalism was realised the important thing was the yield ratio of corn that counted. Anything over 4:1 meant a surplus and taxes so more land was the only way to increase taxation and consequently military and dynastic power.
And last week I picked up a copy of Origins of World War Two by A.J.P. Taylor. He makes several observations about war and great powers. It seems the only way to be a great power is to never fight a big war. If you do that then you lose? Hmmmmmmmm.
So much for the jump ups who want to plunge the world into darkness.
Locally its the shipwreck on the Astrolabe Reef that is causing concern. With such a large coastline New Zealand has had its fair share of marine tragedy's. this one is leaking oil and containers are dropping off the decks but it should be brought under control soon. the problem is that the government or more importantly have been unsure of what to do. It cant be managed away with smooth talk and a few laughs on the teevee. The response from the government has been first to ignore it and then swoop and ocme on like a gang of maritime experts which they are not. Pathetic really. This particular government was elected solely on the basis of it being their "TURN". Yeah right,but the subtext was the sale of the states assets into personal and private ownership. How neat is that? "We areopposed to the governmets owning anything so sell them to us or our proxies and we will take them off your hands. the upshot is that they have had a fistfull of badluck and one can only shudder what karma and hubris have in store for them if they carry on with their pelf.
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