Labels: election, independent scotland, liars, oil, uk

“Almost as if according to some natural law, in every century there seems to emerge a country with the power, the will, and the intellectual and moral impetus to shape the entire international system in accordance with its own values ... In the twentieth century, no country has influenced international relations as decisively and at the same time ambivalently as the United States."

"No society has more firmly insisted on the inadmissibility of intervention in the domestic affairs of other states ... No country has been more reluctant to engage itself abroad.”

"The ability to hold two contradictory thoughts in one's head and believe in both of them simultaneously."

"Sir, I heard he has a really high IQ. 180 or something."

"Yes, there are lots of intelligent criminals."

Labels: Blair, bliar, bush, Doublethink, Iran, Iraq, Kissinger, liars, Lying, Orwell

"The incompetent Tories got us into the Falklands War -now the Falklands Fortress Policy is costing us billions."

"The Tories would rather spend £10 billion on trident missiles, than try to stop the growing nuclear arms race."

"Labour believes in Defence and in membership of N.A.T.O. but we don't need dangerous and costly Trident and Cruise missiles, which just escalate the arms race."

"The Tories say there is no new money to create jobs. But they spend billions of pounds each year on dangerous nuclear weapons. They spend billions on keeping people on the dole [for American readers 'the dole' is slang for being on welfare]. They encourage the rich to invest billions abroad each year. This isn't sense - it's insanity."

Labels: Blair, bliar, bush, CND, liar, liars, nuclear, trident, war

One thing that bugged me was that I wasn’t able to get any books when I was away. Well, I could have, but I am not interested in the Da Vinci Code or where men and women are supposedly from (I always thought they were both from earth) or any of that sort of bollocks.

Consequently, for the first time I got into audio books (downloadable) because I hate reading full books on the computer – it is just not the same.

I started to find it quite enjoyable to stick one on while I was pottering about the house doing housework and so on.

I have kept the habit since I returned and I was on my way to the shops listening to ‘The letters of Oscar Wilde’ yesterday and this little quote really made me laugh…

“It was a fatal day when the public discovered that the pen is mightier than the paving stone and could be made as offensive as the brickbat. They at once sought for the journalist, found him, developed him and made him their industrious and well-paid servant.

In the old days men had the rack, now they have the press. That is an improvement certainly but still it is very bad and wrong and demoralizing. Somebody (was it Burke?), called journalism the fourth estate – that was true at the time no doubt but at the present moment it really is the only estate – it has eaten up the other three.

The ‘Lords Temporal’ say nothing, the ‘Lords Spiritual’ have nothing to say and the House of Commons has nothing to say…and says it.

We are dominated by journalism. The tyranny that it proposes to exercise over peoples private lives seems to me quite extraordinary. The fact is that the public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.

Journalism, conscious of this and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.

In centuries before ours the public nailed journalists ears to the pump - that was quite hideous. In this century journalists have nailed their own ears to the keyhole – that is much worse. The private lives of men and women should not be told to the public, the public have nothing to do with them at all."

If you change the references to "the public" and "men" in general in the first and second paragraphs to "rulers" I think he makes a tremendous point and I couldn't agree more.

Labels: Audio Book, audiobook, book, celebrity, journalism, liars, oscar wilde, press